Overview

• The Ludhiana West assembly by-election is set for June 19 with votes to be counted on June 23.
• On June 8, Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu challenged Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s simplicity narrative by alleging that Mann stayed in a Rs 1 lakh-per-night luxury hotel and occupied an entire floor during his Ludhiana campaign.
• Bittu invoked the slogan “Viksit Bharat, Viksit Punjab, Viksit Ludhiana, Viksit West” to argue that voters must choose development over alleged AAP misrule.
• He pointed to the arrest of Ludhiana Municipal Corporation engineer Sanjay Kanwar on corruption charges as evidence of systemic graft under the AAP-led state government.
• The BJP leader accused local AAP MLAs of distancing themselves from candidate Sanjeev Arora and criticised Arora’s campaign competence after he misnamed martyr Kartar Singh Sarabha.