CHANDIGARH: The Congress party has fielded former minister and Punjab Congress’s working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu, 54, as its candidate for the upcoming Ludhiana West bypoll. He is a two-time former MLA from this seat and a prmominant Hindu face of the party..
His candidature was approved by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, according to a press release issued Friday late nightb by the All India Congress Committee (AICC).
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has already announced its Rajya Sabha member cum industrialist Sanjeev Arora as candidate for the by-poll. The AAP has made this seat a matter of prestige reportedly to get party Supremo elected as Rajya Sabha member to be vacated by Arora.
Recently, Ashu had met senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and said that “winds of real change will blow from Ludhiana West and will storm across Punjab by 2027” and “AAP rout will begin from Ludhiana.”
The bypoll to Ludhiana West, an urban constituency dominated by business and trade community, was necessitated after the demise of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi who died in January this year due to a self-inflicted gunshot injury in head. Gogi, a first-time MLA, had defeated Ashu in 2022 Punjab assembly elections by over 7, 000 votes.
Ashu had won from Ludhiana West in 2012 and 2017 consecutively, and remained food and civil supplies minister during the previous Congress government.
The AAP government had registered two corruption cases against Ash but Punjab and Haryana High Court had scarpped both the FIRs on the ground that no substantial evidence is available against Ashu. The court orders had caused a great embarrassment to the Bhagwant Mann government.