Jalandhar West assembly bypoll: Will expose AAP lies, says BJP’s Angural after filing papers
The bypoll was necessitated after Angural, then an AAP MLA, had resigned after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the Lok Sabha elections on March 28. His resignation was accepted by speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on May 30.
BJP candidate Sheetal Angural filed his nomination papers for the Jalandhar West (reserved) bypoll on Thursday. He was accompanied by senior BJP leaders Manoranjan Kalia, KD Bhandari and former MP Sushil Kumar Rinku. Before that, Angural held a roadshow in the constituency for which Union minister of state for railways and food processing Ravneet Singh Bittu joined him.
The bypoll was necessitated after Angural, then an AAP MLA, had resigned after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the Lok Sabha elections on March 28. His resignation was accepted by speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on May 30.
After filing papers, Angural said he would expose the “lies” of the ruling AAP government regarding development. “In my stint of 22 months as an MLA, the AAP government completely ignored my constituency and not even a single work was done. Chief minister Bhagwant Mann is talking about 43,000 jobs. He should tell how many from Jalandhar West have been recruited,” Angural said.
According to him, he will take the developmental agenda of the BJP among the people and will bring ample funds for the development of the constituency. Among the main issues are drugs and gambling, he said.
Though both the BJP and the Congress have a strong base in the constituency, Angural in 2022, then with AAP, had got the better of Congress’ Rinku by 4,253 votes. In the last five elections, the Congress has won this seat twice in 2002 and 2017 while the BJP bagged it in 2007 and 2012. AAP secured victory in 2022.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the voting percentage of the Congress had gone up to 39.43% from 20.36% in the 2022 assembly polls and BJP’s from 19.51% in 2022 to 21.64% in parliamentary elections.
The vote percentage of the ruling AAP dropped to 21.74% from 22.84% in assembly polls.
The byelection is going to be a prestige battle for the parties. Though Congress’ Charanjit Singh Channi defeated BJP’s Sushil Kumar Rinku to win the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency by a record margin of 1.75 lakh votes, he got a meagre lead of 1,557 votes over his rival in this assembly segment.