From the hot assembly seat of Gidderbaha, Amrita Warring, the wife of Punjab Congress president and Ludhiana Member of Parliament Amrinder Singh Raja Warring in contesting against former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal of BJP and Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon of AAP. Earlier this seat was represented by Warring himself.The other assembly seat where the focus is Dera Baba Nanak from here Jatinder Kaur wife of Gurdaspur Member of Parliament and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa is pitched against Ravikaran Singh Kahlon of BJP and Gurdeep Singh Randhawa of AAP.While from Barnala assembly segment Kewal Singh Dhillon of BJP is facing Kuldeep Singh Kaka Dhillon of Congress, Harinder Singh Dhaliwal of AAP, Govind Singh Mann of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) and AAP rebel and Independent candidate Gurdeep Singh Batth. This assembly seat fell vacant after Gurmeet Singh Hayer, the local MLA from the AAP and state’s sports and youth affairs minister was elected from the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat. Hayer won the Barnala seat in the 2017 and 2022 assembly polls.On the Chabbewal seat it is Ishank Kumar Chabbewal of AAP son of Hoshiarpur MP Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal as earlier this seat was presented by Raj Kumar who was then in Congress before lok sabha polls joined the AAP and then contested and won from Hosharpur. The other candidates in the fray are Sohan Singh Thandal of BJP who was earlier in the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).SAD has opted to stay away from these by-polls. 45 candidates, including three women, are in the fray for the bypolls. A total of 6.96 lakh voters, including 3.31 lakh women, are eligible to exercise their franchise at 831 polling stations. At present, the AAP has 91 MLAs in the 117-member Punjab assembly, while the Congress has 15, Shiromani Akali Dal three, BJP two, and the Bahujan Samaj Party one. One seat is held by an Independent MLA.
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