Punjab: Jalandhar West assembly byelection on July 10, result on July 13
The seat fell vacant after Aam Aadmi Party MLA Sheetal Angural resigned on March 28 and his resignation was accepted by Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on May 30.
The Election Commission on Monday announced that the Jalandhar West assembly byelection will be held on July 10 and the result will be declared on July 13.
The seat fell vacant after Aam Aadmi Party MLA Sheetal Angural resigned on March 28 and his resignation was accepted by Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on May 30.
The poll notification will be issued on June 14, while candidates can file their nominations by June 21. The scrutiny of the documents will carried out on June 24 and the candidates can withdraw nominations by June 26.
Angural had stepped down as AAP MLA a day after he joined the BJP along with Sushil Kumar Rinku, a former AAP MP and later the BJP candidate from Jalandhar on March 27.
The Vidhan Sabha secretariat notification on June 3 said: “Consequent upon the acceptance of the resignation of Sheetal Angural, MLA, the seat of 34-Jalandhar West (SC) assembly segment in the Punjab legislative assembly has fallen vacant with effect from May 30.”
With Angural’s resignation, the number of AAP’s elected MLAs was reduced to 91 from the 92 elected in the 117-member assembly in February 2022.
On May 31, Angural also moved an application to Sandhwan for allowing him to withdraw his resignation from the assembly but Sandhwan rejected the plea, saying his resignation had already been accepted.
The action against Angural was stated according to the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, also known as the anti-defection law under which a member of a House belonging to any party shall be disqualified if he voluntarily gives up membership of his party.
The Jalandhar byelection is going to be prestige battle for all parties as the AAP will look for a suitable candidate to retain its seat, while the BJP will go all out to dominate in the SC reserved constituency.
Though former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi of the Congress defeated BJP’s Rinku to win the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency on June 4 by a record margin of 1.75 lakh votes, the victory margin in this assembly segment was thin. In the BJP stronghold, Channi got a meagre lead of 1,557 votes over his rival.
In the 2022 assembly elections, then AAP nominee Angural had defeated then Congress candidate Rinku by 4,253 votes.
With four sitting MLAs, including a cabinet minister, winning the Lok Sabha elections last week, Punjab will see bypolls to four more assembly constituencies. The MLAs, who emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha election results declared last Tuesday, include cabinet minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal. Hayer, a two-time AAP MLA from Barnala, has won the Sangrur seat, while Warring and Randhawa, Congress MLAs from Gidderbaha and Dera Baba Nanak, won in Ludhiana and Gurdaspur, respectively. All three are expected to tender their resignations from the assembly within the next few days.