Chandigarh, May 9 (PTI) Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C on Tuesday said all necessary arrangements are in place to ensure a free, fair and peaceful bypoll to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat.
Polling for the Jalandhar parliamentary constituency will begin at 8 am and will continue till 6 pm on Wednesday.
The Jalandhar Lok Sabha (reserved) seat fell vacant following the death of Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary. He suffered a cardiac arrest during the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jalandhar’s Phillaur in January this year.
There are a total 16,21,800 eligible voters, comprising 8,44,904 males and 7,76,855 females and 41 transgender, in the constituency, the CEO said, addressing the media here.
Nineteen candidates, including four women, are in the fray. The counting will take place on May 13.
There are a total of 1,972 polling stations and there will be webcasting of all these stations.
“We are going 100 per cent coverage of webcasting. All 1,972 polling stations will be monitored online,” Sibin said.
He said the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) will be deployed at 1,524 polling stations. “It means the CAPF will be deployed at almost 80 per cent of polling stations.” Micro observers will be deployed at 302 polling stations, he added.
The CEO said there are five contesting candidates — Paramjit Kaur Teji, Rohit Kumar Tinku, Sukhwinder Sukhi, Gurjant Singh and Neetu Shatranwala –with criminal antecedents.
He said as many as 4,839 ballot units, 2,927 control units and 2,973 VVPATs (voter verifiable paper audit trail) will be used in the by-election.
Sibin said there will be 45 model polling stations.
The CEO said 1,083 complaints were received on National Grievances Redressal Portal since the model code of conduct came into the force, and of which 989 were disposed of and 94 are under process.
He said 1,381 complaints were received on c-Vigil app and out of which 1,142 were found correct and resolved.
The CEO said following complaints of model code of conduct received against AAP candidate Sushil Rinku, an expenditure of Rs 4.65 lakh was added to the candidate’s account.
Regarding the seizure made by the expenditure monitoring teams, he said cash, liquor, drugs worth Rs 3.77 crore were recovered. PTI CHS VSD AQS
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