Ludhiana, June 19 - Voting for the Ludhiana West constituency by-election, which began at 7 am, ended at 6 pm. 51.33% polling has been recorded till 7 pm. After 6 pm, only voters present inside the polling booth were allowed to vote.
Barring a few clashes between party workers of AAP and Shiromani Akali Dal at a few places, the voting process was conducted peacefully overall. The political fate of AAP candidate Sanjeev Arora, Congress' Bharat Bhushan Ashu, BJP's Jeevan Gupta and Shiromani Akali Dal candidate Parupkar Singh Ghuman were decided by electronic voting machines.
The counting of votes will be held on June 23. It is worth noting that the by-election to the Ludhiana West seat was necessitated by the suspicious death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi.
The police and the administration had made elaborate security arrangements here. A total of 1.74 lakh voters were eligible to exercise their constitutional right for the by-election to the Ludhiana West constituency. 194 parties, based on 776 polling staff, were deployed at polling stations today.
In view of the tense atmosphere for the by-election, five companies of central forces were deployed and 1404 police personnel were on election duty in the constituency. 60 police checkpoints were set up and 19 patrol parties were deployed in view of the by-election.
A total of 14 candidates, including a woman, were in the fray for the Ludhiana West by-election. The atmosphere in the constituency had become tense on Wednesday itself before the voting. An incident of mutual friction between Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu and the police came to light in the Jawahar Nagar area. Ashu said that his workers caught a person distributing ration and the police started bullying at the behest of the AAP government. This is the first assembly election for AAP candidate Sanjeev Arora, who is contesting the by-election, while Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu has won the elections twice before. This election was no less than a litmus test for AAP as the party's national leadership, including Arvind Kejriwal and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, was fully prepared.