Chandigarh, Oct 14 (PTI) Gram panchayat election will be held in Punjab on Tuesday amid tight security despite calls of deferment by the Congress over alleged irregularities during the nomination.
Polling for the post of ‘Sarpanch’ and ‘Panch’ will be held from 8 am till 4 pm through ballot boxes, officials announced on Monday.
Votes will be counted on the same day at the polling station itself, they said.
There will be more than 19,1100 polling booths, 1,187 of them marked as hyper-sensitive. for the election being held for more than 13,000 gram panchayats in the state.
Officials said polling for the post of ‘Sarpanch’ will be held in 9,398 gram panchayats, out of a total of 13,225 villages in the state.
Already 3,798 candidates for the post of ‘Sarpanch’ have been elected unopposed, and polling for 29 villages been cancelled, they said.
The elections are being held without symbols of political parties as a consequence of the Punjab Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2024, passed last month by the Vidhan Sabha.
There are a total of 1.33 crore registered voters, comprising 70.51 lakh male and 63.46 lakh female voters.
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann appealed to the people to exercise their franchise freely and fairly.
In a statement, Mann asked the people to participate in the polls with a spirit of communal harmony, peace, and brotherhood.
The CM also credited the Punjab and Haryana High court with clearing the path for a smooth conduct of the panchayat polls.
The high court Monday dismissed around 1,000 petitions filed against the panchayat polls on several grounds, which included a challenge to ward demarcation, delimitation, grievances pertaining to poll symbols, extension of time for nominations, and rejection of nomination papers.
The court also vacated the stay on polling in over 200 panchayats, said Advocate Hakam Singh, who represented the petitioners.
The lawyer said the court dismissed all these pleas on the ground of maintainability as the state election commission being an independent body can take decisions on its own.
AAP leader Neel Garg said the court decision was a “tight slap” on the face of the “false propaganda” of the opposition parties.
He said they spread a “false narrative” to mislead the people and levelled baseless accusations.
Earlier in the day, the Punjab Congress sought postponement of the elections by three weeks, alleging irregularities during the nomination process, which it feared may happen during the voting as well.
A party delegation, led by leader of opposition in the Punjab assembly Partap Singh Bajwa, also met the Punjab State Election Commissioner here.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Bajwa said the delegation requested the state election commissioner to postpone the panchayat elections by three weeks.
He alleged that “massive irregularities” were committed during the nomination process with several names “wrongfully” rejected.
Bajwa said many opposition-backed candidates were not given no-objection certificates required during the nominations filing.
“We want the election process to be postponed by three weeks. We do not want cancellation of the panchayat elections,” Bajwa said.
He also pointed out that the voters’ list of January 1, 2023 has been considered for the panchayat elections, instead of the voters’ list issued on January 1, 2024, which was considered during the Lok Sabha polls.
Aam Aadmi Party leader and an MP, Malvinder Singh Kang said Bajwa was talking about postponement “out of fear of a major defeat” which has made the party “unnerved”.
“Villagers are not giving any importance to the Congress-backed candidates because they have seen their actions in the past. This time, people have decided to elect candidates associated with the AAP as Sarpanch. Public wants to support the Mann government to contribute to Punjab’s progress,” Kang said in a statement.
“This is why leaders from Akali Dal and Congress are anxious,” he added.
He also alleged that in the previous Congress and Akali governments, there used to be “widespread violence” during panchayat elections.
“The AAP government has ended this culture and made the elections more transparent. Therefore, our government decided that a Sarpanch should be from the village, not from any party. This has upset Congress and Akali leaders,” he said.
Earlier also, the opposition parties accused the AAP government of misusing the state machinery to reject the nominations of the opposition-backed candidates.
The Congress accused the AAP government of “systematically dismantling” democratic processes in the panchayat elections. PTI CHS VSD VN VN
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.