Chandigarh, Oct 14 (PTI) Gram panchayat election will be held in Punjab on Tuesday amid tight security arrangements 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 19,000 polling booths for the election being held for more than 13,000 gram panchayats in the state.
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.
The Punjab Congress on Monday sought postponement of the panchayat 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 of 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.
“This is why leaders from Akali Dal and Congress are anxious,” Kang said in a statement.
He also alleged that during 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 had accused the AAP government of misusing the state machinery to reject the nominations of the opposition-backed candidates.
The Congress has also accused the AAP government of “systematically dismantling” democratic processes in the panchayat elections. PTI CHS VSD VN VN
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