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Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has once again strengthened its hold in Punjab politics. In the Ludhiana West Assembly by-election, AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora defeated senior Congress leader Bharat Bhushan Ashu by 10,637 votes. With this victory, the party has regained this seat, which was vacant after the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi.

As soon as the counting of votes began, Sanjeev Arora took the lead, which he maintained till the last round. His decisive victory created a wave of happiness in the AAP camp, where sweets were distributed along with drums and supporters were seen raising loud slogans.

AAP’s lead remained intact from start to finish

Sanjeev Arora won the Ludhiana West seat by getting a total of 35,179 votes, leaving Congress’ Bharat Bhushan Ashu far behind, who could get only 24,525 votes. Jeevan Gupta of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came third with more than 23,000 votes, while Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) lawyer Parupkar Singh Ghuman got just less than 9,000 votes.

AAP gets the gift of double victory in a single day

In this by-election, AAP got great success not only in Punjab but also in Gujarat. The party also won the Visavadar seat of Gujarat and ousted the BJP from there after 18 years. This victory is important for AAP at a time when the big faces of the party Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia have been politically quiet since the Delhi assembly elections.

Kejriwal’s message

On this double victory, former Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal tweeted and congratulated the party workers and thanked the people of Punjab and Gujarat. He wrote, “In both the places, we have won by double the margin than last time. It is clear that the people of Punjab are happy with our government and they voted more than in 2022. The people of Gujarat are now fed up with BJP and are looking for hope in Aam Aadmi Party. Both Congress and BJP together tried to defeat AAP, but the public rejected both.”

Big faces in election campaign

In the election campaign held in Ludhiana West, both AAP and BJP fielded their big leaders. On one hand, Arvind Kejriwal, Bhagwant Mann and Atishi campaigned for the AAP candidate, while on the other hand, Delhi Mayor Rekha Gupta and Haryana Chief Minister Naib Singh Saini took charge of the campaign for BJP.

Will it affect the Rajya Sabha?

Since the winning candidate Sanjeev Arora is also a Rajya Sabha MP, the status of this seat can now become a topic of discussion in the Upper House as well. The question is whether the party will now send a new name to the Rajya Sabha and will it be Kejriwal or Sisodia among them?