The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged as the single largest party by winning 41 wards in the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation elections, the results of which were declared late on Saturday. However, seven wards could not get a full majority in the 95-wards General Assembly.
According to the results announced by the Ludhiana Returning Officer, Congress won 30 wards (contest 94), BJP 19 (contest 90), SAD 2 (contest 78) and independent candidates won 3.
Voting for the 95-member Ludhiana MC General House was held earlier in the day and was largely peaceful with a voter turnout of 46.95 percent – down from 59.08 percent in the 2018 MC elections.
Major wins, losses
In a major setback for the ruling AAP, the wives of two of its sitting MLAs have been defeated.
Apart from them, the former Congress minister’s wife has also been defeated.
The BJP, which contested its first solo civic polls in Ludhiana after parting ways with former ally SAD, got a big boost after its candidate Poonam Ratra defeated AAP’s Meenu Prashar, wife of AAP MLA Ashok Prashar Pappi from Ludhiana Central. He got 574 votes from Ward No. 77. But Pappy’s brother former Congress leader Rakesh Parashar and a five-time councillor, won from Ward No. 90, the BJP candidate was defeated by more than 600 votes.
In the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, the BJP led in five urban assembly constituencies and won 66 urban wards in Ludhiana. AAP faced defeat and failed to lead in any of the nine assembly constituencies despite having its MLAs. Pappi, the Aam Aadmi Party candidate in the Lok Sabha elections, was ranked third in Ludhiana after the Congress and the BJP.
Sukhchain Bassi, wife of Aam Aadmi Party’s Ludhiana West MLA Gurpreet Gogi, lost to Parminder Kaur of Congress from Ward No. 61 by 86 votes, despite Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann holding a road show in Gogi’s constituency on the last day of campaigning in support of Bassi. Gogi had opened a front against his own government saying that it had failed to clean the polluted Buddha Nalla and had even demolished the foundation of the sanitation project put up by the AAP government.
Aam Aadmi Party MLA Gurpreet Gogi’s wife Sukhchain Bassi has also been defeated. (express)
Parminder Kaur is the wife of Inderjit Indi, a close aide of former Congress minister Bharatbhushan Ashu. Vigilante had arrested Indi along with Ashu in the alleged multi-crore food scam, but the High Court recently quashed the FIR.
However, Aman Bagga Khurana, son of AAP Ludhiana North MLA Madan Lal Bagga, won Ward No. 94 by defeating Congress candidate Resham Singh by 887 votes, while AAP Atom Nagar MLA Kulwant Singh Sidhu’s son Yuvraj Singh Sidhu defeated the Congress candidate by 1,900 votes. have won
Congress got mixed results in LMC elections too.
Mamta, wife of former Congress minister Bharatbhushan Ashu, a three-time councilor, ward number 60, was defeated by Aam Aadmi Party’s Gurpreet Singh by 168 votes.
Mamata Ashu, wife of former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, has been defeated. (express)
Leena Sharma, wife of Ashu’s cousin Narendra Kala, also a two-time former councillor, lost to Apaki Nandini Jayarath by 195 votes.
Shamsunder Malhotra, the former Congress senior deputy mayor from ward number 84, has again defeated the BJP candidate by 600 votes.
Shalu Dawar, daughter-in-law of former Congress MLA Surinder Dawar, won from Ward No. 85 by more than 600 votes.
Deepika Bhalla, wife of former councilor Gagandeep Sunny Bhalla, a close aide of Ashu, who was also questioned in the alleged food scam, won ward number 69, defeating BJP’s Mala Dhanda by over 1,700 votes.
Opposition parties have questioned the low turnout
Calling the MC elections under the AAP government “grossly mismanaged and unfair”, Congress President for Urban Ludhiana Sanjay Talwar said: “Many governments have come and gone but these were the most chaotic elections. They were held in the most unfair manner. Much to help the ruling AAP win.” Colony voters’ names are completely missing from the voter list.Despite this high strength of ‘AAP’ we have won 30 wards and are in power The party has failed to get a majority. The reason for not leaving the voter list is to show that there are fewer voters.”
Parveen Bansal, senior BJP leader and former district president, said: “Voter lists were manipulated to such an extent that hundreds of people could not even vote. Can the Aam Aadmi Party explain how only 46 per cent voters turned out? Where did the rest go? Such low turnout It indicates how the voter list was changed and the voter list was not provided to the opposition party till the last day In spite of all we have won 19 seats which is a huge victory for BJP in its first single civic election.
2018 Results
The Ludhiana MC elections were scheduled to take place more than a year after the previous House completed its term in March 2023.
In 2018, the Congress won 62 of the 95 wards, while the SAD-BJP emerged as the main opposition, winning 21 seats together. AAP contested the 2018 elections in alliance with Lok Insaf Party (LIP) and they won 8 seats, out of which AAP won only one. In 2018, Balkar Singh Sandhu of Congress was elected as the Mayor. In 2012 SAD-BJP won majority.
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