Nidhi.Bhardwaj@timesofindia.comLudhiana: Despite all efforts, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory evaded BJP and its candidate, Jiwan Gupta, who remained in third place with 20,323 votes. This is a throwback to the 2022 assembly elections, when Aam Aadmi Party emerged victorious while Congress and BJP stood second and third.As compared to the Assembly elections of 2022, there has been a 2% decrease in the total vote share of the BJP. This time, fewer votes were cast in the bypoll. The party claimed that this was a major reason for reduction in its vote percentage. Another major reason being considered is the late announcement of the candidate’s name.When the result was declared on Monday, BJP’s Jiwan Gupta remained in the third position in each round, except for the third round, when he jumped to second position. However, in each round, fewer votes were polled for the BJP. Still, the saffron party did much better than Shiromani Akali Dal. While BJP managed to get 22.54% vote share, SAD got 9.1%.Also, BJP announced Gupta’s name at the last minute, which did not give him enough time to cover the areas falling under the West constituency. Gupta hardly got 10 days to campaign, for which he got support from the district team, state team, and even the CMs of Haryana and Delhi. A roadshow was also organised in the city.“It is a public mandate and we can only accept it. At the party level, we will check where we lacked and what else we could have done to win this seat,” Gupta said. BJP district president Rajnish Dhiman said, “We should have announced the candidate in advance; then we would have gotten enough time to approach more people. These elections were conducted with the support of the bureaucracy and administration and everyone knows what was done in the last few days, so we will continue serving people as we were doing and prepare well for the 2027 assembly elections.”During a press conference organised by Jiwan Gupta at the district BJP office in Dugri, he alleged that government machinery was openly used in the elections. He said that at a few places, vote percentage was very low while at others, it was 65% to 70%. Gupta said that only 465 votes were cast at one booth of which AAP got around 412. Part of a patternThe saffron party has retained the third position for three assembly elections since 2017. In 2017, the party fielded Kamal Chatly, who polled 22,620 votes. In 2022, advocate Bikram Singh Sidhu got 28,107 votes, and remained in the third position. Now, even Jiwan Gupta remained in third place.Round-wise votes polled for BJP Round 1 – 1,117Round 2 – 1,619Round 3 – 2,421Round 4 – 1,976Round 5 – 1,638Round 6 – 1,872Round 7 – 1,136Round 8 – 925Round 9 – 1,118Round 10 – 1,199Round 11 – 730Round 12 – 1,624Round 13 – 1,217Round 14 – 1,647Postal votes – 24 MSID:: 122025103 413 |
