Chandigarh, June 5 (PTI) Fourteen candidates will contest the Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll in Punjab after the time to withdraw nominations ended on Thursday.
Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C said on the last day for withdrawal of nominations, one independent candidate, Kamal Pawar, withdrew his nomination.
After the scrutiny of nomination papers, 15 nominations were found valid, and with the withdrawal of one candidate, 14 candidates now remain in the electoral fray.
The bypoll to Ludhiana West assembly seat in Punjab will take place on June 19 and the counting will be held on June 23.
The Ludhiana West seat fell vacant following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.
The Aam Aadmi Party has fielded Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora for the bypoll. The ruling party was the first political outfit to announce its candidate in the month of February.
Arora (61) is a Ludhiana-based industrialist and is also known for his social welfare work. Arora has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2022.
The Congress has fielded former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who had remained MLA twice from this seat in 2012 and 2017.
Ashu was defeated by AAP's Gogi by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls. The Shiromani Akali Dal has nominated Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a lawyer, for the bypoll.
The BJP has fielded Jiwan Gupta for the bypoll. There are a total of 1,74,437 voters who are eligible to exercise their right to vote on June 19.
The voter demographic includes 89,602 males, 84,825 females, and 10 who are under the "third gender" category in the Ludhiana West Assembly seat.
Additionally, the electorate comprises 100 service voters, 2,039 senior citizens, 2,896 young voters (aged 18-19), 17 overseas voters, and 1,234 persons with disabilities (PWD), he said.
A total of 192 polling stations across 66 locations will be established to facilitate voting.