Trouble brews in Congress after Ludhiana bypoll defeat: 'Top leaders colluded with AAP'

Congress candidate from Ludhiana West Bharat Bhushan Ashu with party leader Rahul Gandhi. (Image credit: X/@BB__Ashu)

The Aam Aadmi Party's victory in the recent Assembly bypolls to Punjab's Ludhiana (West) constituency has triggered a peculiar war of words between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, besides leading to serious allegations from within the grand old party as well.

The Congress had fielded former Punjab minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu from the seat. He lost to AAP’s Sanjeev Arora, a Rajya Sabha MP, by over 10,000 votes.

Following the party's defeat, Congress's Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira alleged that a senior leader from within Congress colluded with AAP "in exchange of some favor for his industrial houses."

"Yes the @INCIndia should seriously introspect the reasons of defeat including the collusion of some of their top leaders with AAP government particularly those being made in-charge of by elections repeatedly despite losses ! Has any such leader taken favour for his industrial house to compromise these elections or helped give his crony as a candidate to AAP?" Khaira wrote in a post on X.

Khaira’s post has been seen as a veiled attack on Kapurthala MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh who was appointed as in-charge of the Ludhiana West bypoll by the Congress high command and extensively campaigned for Ashu.

Surprisingly, a similar claim was made by BJP's Punjab chief Sunil Jakhar after Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said that "AAP and BJP had entered a secret understanding to defeat Congress in Ludhiana."

Jakhar said that the Congress's defeat was due to some of its own leaders "surrendering to the Chief Minister through a deal."

"Fearing their secrets being exposed, Congress leaders are now falsely accusing the BJP. However, the real responsibility for Congress’s defeat lies with those leaders who are now taking the lead in blaming others," Jakhar said, adding that it was no secret who Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann accused of corruption in the Transport department.

Jakhar said that on one hand, Congress leaders struck a deal with the Chief Minister, while on the other, they displayed their old habit of harming their own by ruining the career of a prominent leader like Ashu, thereby undermining their own party.

"It is no secret that CM Mann had mentioned in the Vidhan Sabha about irregularities in the Transport Department and spoken about filing cases against a certain leader. Despite so much time having passed, the AAP government, which claims to follow a zero-tolerance policy on corruption, has taken no action regarding the alleged irregularities. This clearly indicates that either another act of corruption has taken place to suppress this issue, or the responsible leader has surrendered to the Chief Minister by selling out their party’s interests," Jakhar said.

Jakhar said that the corruption CM Mann spoke about in the Vidhan Sabha, and for which he talked about filing cases, has seen no action even after three and a half years of the government’s tenure.

"This is a clear indication that a secret deal has been struck between the two sides," he added.

The Congress campaign for the Ludhiana West seat was mired by factionalism and internal divisions and its leaders made no visible attempts to quell the narrative that the AAP and BJP had managed to stitch around it.

A strained relationship between PCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and the candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu, the absence of key state leaders from the campaign, and the public perception of disunity only weakened the party’s coordination, messaging, and worker morale.

On May 29, Ashu was absent from a key strategy meeting organised by Warring in Ludhiana East aimed at mobilising party workers for his own candidacy. Multiple reports suggested that all through the campaign, Warring barely mentioned Ashu in any of his speeches.

On June 16, Congress' campaign in-charge Rana Gurjeet Singh maintained distance from Warring, and Partap Singh Bajwa, the Leader of Opposition, and even attempted to leave abruptly before being persuaded to stay during a press conference held by Congress general secretary in charge of Punjab, Bhupesh Baghel.

On June 17, the last day of campaigning, Warring and Bajwa remained absent from the roadshow held by Ashu to mark the end his campaign. Several prominent Punjab Congress leaders, including Warring, Ludhiana district Congress chief Sanjay Talwar, and Bajwa, were notably absent from Ashu’s campaign materials, such as posters, billboards, and social media graphics.

The outcome of the intra-party rivalry was on expected lines -- the Congress was deprived of a victory in the key urban seat which the party held six times in the past 40 years. Its candidate Ashu also won the seat in 2012 and 2017.