Punjab byelection: Voting underway in Jalandhar West assembly segment

Jalandhar West bypoll litmus test for Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, particularly after the Lok Sabha election debacle in which the AAP managed to win only three out of the 13 seats in Punjab.

The Jalandhar West assembly byelection saw a 42.60% voter turnout till 3pm on Wednesday.

Voters standing in queues at a polling station to cast their votes during the Jalandhar West assembly byelection on Wednesday. (PTI Photo)

An estimated 1.71 lakh voters will decide the fate of 15 candidates in the fray, polling for which began at 7am and will continue till 6pm.

The result will be declared on July 13.

The byelection was necessitated after Sheetal Angural, who is now fighting as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, resigned as an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

AAP candidate Mohinder Bhagat cast his franchise after taking the blessings of his father, veteran BJP leader Chunni Lal Bhagat.

Congress candidate Surinder Kaur, BJP’s Angural and BSP nominee Bhinder Kumar Lakha cast their votes in their respective polling stations.

Polling remained peaceful barring few reports of AAP workers from other parts of the state roaming freely in their vehicles.

Angural informed the district administration about them and urged the authorities to initiate action against outsiders violating the model code of conduct.

Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring has also been camping at the office of Jalandhar police commissioner Swapan Sharma to ensure that the election process is carried out in a free and fair manner. “There are no reports of violence so far but I’ve asked Congress workers to report any kind of disturbance or rigging in their respective booths immediately so that the matter can be taken up with top police officials,” Warring said.

In the 2022 assembly elections, the Jalandhar West segment recorded 67.31% voter turnout, while it reduced to 64.45% in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

The district administration has set up 181 polling stations, of which 51 are hyper-sensitive for which elaborate security arrangements have been made.

As many as 1,055 security personnel, including 700 Punjab police personnel and three companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), have been deployed to ensure law and order.

The Jalandhar West bypoll is a litmus test for Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, especially after the Lok Sabha election debacle in which the AAP managed to win only three out of the 13 seats in Punjab.

The Congress, on the other hand, is looking for an icing on the cake after its candidate and former CM Charanjit Singh Channi won the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 1.75 lakh votes. However, it won’t be easy going for the Congress as Channi could manage a lead of only 1,557 votes in the Jalandhar West segment.

For BJP’s Angural, a win here will justify his decision to snap ties with the AAP and join the saffron party before the parliamentary elections. Moreover, the BJP is eyeing to retain its old bastion from where its senior leader Chunni Lal Bhagat won the assembly elections thrice, in 1997, 2007 and 2012.

In the past five elections, the Congress has won the seat twice in 2002 and 2017, while the BJP bagged it in 2007 and 2012. The AAP secured a victory in 2022 in which its then candidate Angural got the better of Congress’ Rinku by 4,253 votes.