Ludhiana bypoll: Warring says no rift in Cong, claims BJP ‘shifted’ votes to AAP

Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on Tuesday rejected observations that factionalism in the party cost it the Ludhiana (West) Assembly bypoll.

He also claimed that the BJP “shifted” its vote base to ruling AAP to defeat them.

“The Congress did not lose due to any infighting. The Congress lost as state’s ruling AAP and the BJP got together against us,” he said, claiming that both parties had a “secret understanding” against his party.

The statement has come a day after Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu lost the bypoll to AAP’s Sanjeev Arora by over 10,000 votes, with BJP’s Jiwan Gupta remaining at the third position.

However, Warring on Tuesday downplayed the issue, alleging that his party was being subjected to a “media trial”.

“Why the media is not raising same questions to AAP as Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and its national convener Arvind Kejriwal did not show up in the last day of canvassing,” he said.

Warring said the BJP’s vote share reduced by half when compared with the 2024 Lok Sabha poll just a year ago, indicating that the party “shifted its base” to AAP, whose vote share almost doubled.

Warring said the BJP vote share in the General Election in Ludhiana West was 41 per cent, which came down to 22 per cent this time.

“The AAP vote share in 2024 was 20 per cent, which went up to 39 per cent. Compared to them, the Congress retained its vote share at about 27 per cent,” said Warring, who is also the Ludhiana Lok Sabha MP.

He said senior party leaders, including former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, worked very hard. Warring said he too was in the constituency whenever possible.

He said as the state party chief, he was required to carry out other activities chalked out by the AICC, one of the top decision-making bodies of the party. He said these programmes included “Save Constitution” meetings and reaching out to the grassroots-level workers.

Punjab