AAP wins in Gujarat, Punjab bypolls

In Kerala, Cong stuns Left; TMC has easy win in West Bengal

- LEENA MISRA, SHAJU PHILIP, DIVYA GOYAL & ATRI MITRA

AFTER SUCCESSIVE SETBACKS, the Aam Aadmi Party had some reason to rejoice on Monday as the party won two Assembly seat bypolls, with the victory in Gujarat particularly sweet.

Taking to X, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal called the bypolls "a semi-final to 2027". Both Gujarat and Punjab, the other state where the AAP picked up a seat, will see Assembly elections in 2027. "Both the parties, Congress and BJP, contested the elections together in both places. Both of them had the same objective—to defeat AAP. But people rejected both these parties in both the places," Kejriwal said in a post on X. Both the Assembly seats that the AAP won had also gone to the party in the 2022 state polls. While the Ludhiana West bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi, the Visavadar seat in Gujarat fell vacant after the sitting AAP MLA defected to the BJP.