High-pitched campaign draws to a close as Punjab readies for Nov 20 Assembly bypolls

    Chandigarh, Nov 18 (PTI) Campaigning for the November 20 Assembly bypolls to four seats in Punjab ended on Monday evening with the ruling AAP and the opposition Congress and BJP making last-ditch efforts to mobilise support for their respective candidates.
    Hours before the campaign ended at 6 pm, the major political outfits intensified their efforts to woo the voters.
    Bypolls to four Assembly segments -- Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala -- will be held on November 20 from 7 am to 6 pm, and the results will be out on November 23.
    The bypolls were necessitated after the MLAs representing the seats were elected to the Lok Sabha in the general elections held earlier this year.
    Three of the four seats -- Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak and Chabbewal -- were earlier held by the Congress, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) represented Barnala.
    The bypolls will decide the fates of some key contestants, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee and former Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Congress' Amrita Warring and Jatinder Kaur, AAP's Hardeep Singh 'Dimpy' Dhillon, Ishank Kumar Chabbewal, along with Kewal Singh Dhillon, Sohan Singh Thandal and Ravikaran Singh Kahlon of the BJP.
    Amrita Warring is the wife of Punjab Congress chief and Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, while Jaitinder Kaur is the spouse of Gurdaspur MP and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.
    In Gidderbaha, Amrita Warring is locked in a keenly-watched contest with BJP's Manpreet Badal and AAP's Hardeep Dhillon.
    On the last day of campaigning in Gidderbaha, Raja Warring, who represented the seat in 2012, 2017 and 2022, took out a roadshow in support of his wife Amrita Warring which was joined by Balkaur Singh, the father of singer Sidhu Moosewala who was murdered in May 2022.
    AAP's Hardeep Dhillon also took out a roadshow in Gidderbaha, which was joined by Cabinet ministers Aman Arora and Gurmeet Singh Khuddian.
    Congress' Jatinder Kaur, who is contesting the Dera Baba Nanak seat earlier represented by her husband Sukhjinder Randhawa, is up against AAP's Gurdeep Singh Randhawa and Ravikaran Singh Kahlon of the BJP.
    AAP's Ishank Chabbewal, Congress nominee Ranjit Kumar, and BJP's Sohan Singh Thandal are locked in a triangular contest in Chabbewal, an SC reserved seat.
    Ishank is the son of AAP MP from Hoshiarpur, Raj Kumar Chabbewal.
    Barnala is also witnessing a triangular contest between AAP's Harinder Singh Dhaliwal, Kuldeep Singh Dhillon of the Congress, and BJP's Kewal Singh Dhillon.
    The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has opted to stay away from the bypolls after Sukhbir Singh Badal, who has since resigned as the SAD chief, failed to get any temporary relief from the Akal Takht which declared him 'tankhaiya' (person guilty of religious misconduct) for the "mistakes" committed by his party and the government run by it from 2007 to 2017.
    During canvassing, the AAP focused its poll campaign on the works done by the Bhagwant Mann government over the past two-and-half years.
    The chief minister spearheaded the party's election campaign in the four Assembly segments, listing out his government's achievements, including free electricity to domestic consumers, opening of 'Aam Aadmi Clinics' and providing 48,000 government jobs on merit basis.
    AAP national convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also held public meetings in the four seats, seeking people's blessings for his party's nominees for the byelections.
    State ministers and MLAs were also deputed in these constituencies to garner support for the AAP nominees.
    The Congress in its campaign took on the AAP government on many issues, including alleged deteriorating law and order, "failure" to meet its poll promise of giving Rs 1,000 per month to women, "tardy" paddy procurement forcing farmers to face hardships in 'mandis', and the drug menace.
    Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, former chief minister and Lok Sabha MP Charanjit Singh Channi, MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira, former minister Vijay Inder Singla, and MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh canvassed extensively for the Congress candidates.
    For the BJP, Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu, party's national general secretary Tarun Chugh, former Union minister Anurag Thakur, state in-charge and former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, MLA Ashwani Sharma and other party leaders campaigned for the nominees.
    Bittu, who led the party's campaign in the four Assembly segments, targeted the AAP government over the delayed paddy lifting, calling it an "ineffective" dispensation.
    The BJP leaders also reiterated the party's commitment to address the concerns of the people of Punjab by effectively meeting their expectations.
    A total of 45 candidates, including three women, are in the fray for the bypolls in which 6.96 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise at 831 polling stations, officials said.
    In the 117-member Punjab Assembly, the AAP currently has 91 legislators, Congress 15, SAD 3, BJP 2, Bahujan Samaj Party 1, and one Independent MLA.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)