Ludhiana | AAP candidate Sanjeev Arora appears to be heading for a victory from the Ludhiana West assembly seat in Punjab leading with a margin of over 7,000 votes against his nearest rival and Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu, according to initial trends.
Arora was ahead of Ashu by 7,504 votes after the 11 of 14th rounds of counting. Arora had polled 27,872 votes and Ashu 20,638 votes.
The AAP workers started celebrations over Arora's lead, anticipating his victory in a fierce electoral fight.
From the beginning of counting, Aam Aadmi Party candidate Arora took the lead.
Though the AAP nominee maintained overall lead, Ashu led fourth, fifth and sixth rounds of counting during which, the AAP candidate's margin dropped.
After the first three rounds of counting, Arora was leading with a margin of 3,060 votes, which dipped to 2,286 votes after the sixth round.
However, Arora's margin again started rising from the seventh round onwards.
BJP's Jiwan Gupta, who took over Ashu in third round, polled 15,811 votes. Shiromani Akali Dal candidate Parupkar Singh Ghuman was fourth with 6,352 votes.
There were 14 candidates in the fray and the counting of votes for the June 19 bypoll began at 8 am at a centre set up in Khalsa College for Women here.
The bypoll was necessitated following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.
A voter turnout of 51.33 per cent was recorded in the bypoll, a sharp drop from the 64 per cent voting registered in the 2022 state polls. There were a total of 1.75 lakh eligible voters for the bypoll.
The bypoll was seen as a litmus test for the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government and the ruling party's national leadership which aggressively campaigned to retain this seat.
