In the Jalandhar West Assembly by-election, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Mohinder Bhagat scored a landslide victory with 55,246 votes. However, the second and third places were a shocking result with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Sheetal Angural coming second with 17,921 votes and Congress candidate Surinder Kaur trailing in third place with 16,757 votes. AAP’s dominant performance was outlined by the massive margin of 37,325. Shiromani Akali Dal’s Surjit Kaur came in at third with 1,242 votes and BSP’s Binder Kumar at fourth with 734 votes. Totals of voters were counted to be 94,609.
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann's decision to monitor AAP's campaign for Jalandhar West Bye Election seems to have given big results. In the Lok Sabha elections, AAP had come third overall in the Jalandhar constituency however CM Mann’s aggressive campaigning has led to this landslide victory of Mohinder Bhagat Apart from monitoring & getting involved in the election campaign, Bhagwant Mann's decision to shift his bases to Jalandhar from Chandigarh is turned out to be a masterstroke as it won the trust of the people. Bhagwant Mann's wife and sister also helped him out. Mann's sister and wife have visited people door-to-door and had discussions over their issues.
Who is Mohinder Bhagat?
Mohinder Bhagat, 66, son of BJP veteran and former three-time MLA Chunni Lal Bhagat, joined the AAP last year. He contested the seat in 2017 on a BJP ticket but lost to Sushil Kumar Rinku, the then Congress candidate who defected to the AAP in 2023 and to the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls. He has also been a minister in the state government.
Mohinder's father, who represented Jalandhar West in the Assembly, had wept before the media saying that his son had kept him in the dark about his plan to quit the BJP. However, Chunni Lal Bhagat has now appealed to voters to support his son.
The bye-elections this year saw a significant decrease in the voter turnout as compared to the previous Jalandhar West Legislative Assembly elections at 54.98%. Talking about the candidates, they are the former senior deputy mayor Surinder Kaur for Congress, former BJP minister Chunni Lal Bhagat's son Mohinder Bhagat from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and former MLA Sheetal Angural from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The seat was won by BJP in 2012, Congress in 2017 and AAP in 2022. AAP had won the seat by contesting with Sheetal Angural as their candidate, who switched party just before the Lok Sabha elections in March and resigned as the MLA. Mohinder Bhagat, made the switch from BJP to AAP, leading to this victory in the bye-polls.