Ludhiana: Punjab's ruling AAP retained the Ludhiana West Assembly seat with its candidate Sanjeev Arora defeating his nearest rival and Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu by a margin of 10,637 votes on Monday.

Arora secured 35,179 votes while Ashu got 24,542 votes, according to the Election Commission data.

BJP's Jiwan Gupta polled 20,323 votes while the Shiromani Akali Dal's nominee Parupkar Singh Ghuman got 8,203 votes.

The bypoll was necessitated following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.

The counting of votes for the June 19 bypoll began at 8 am at a centre set up at the Khalsa College for Women here.

Following the AAP's victory, celebrations broke out at the residence of Arora and at the party office in Ludhiana. PTI