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Gram Panchayat elections will be held in Punjab on Tuesday amid tight security arrangements. However, the Congress has asked for a postponement of the elections due to alleged irregularities in nominations. Officials announced on Monday that voting for the posts of Sarpanch and Panch will be held from 8 am to 4 pm through paper ballots. He said vote counting would begin at polling stations starting Tuesday evening.
More than 19,000 polling stations have been set up for the elections held in over 13,000 gram panchayats in Punjab. Candidates will not use symbols of political parties in view of the Punjab Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2024 passed by the Assembly last month. There are a total of 1.33 crore registered voters for the Panchayat elections, of which 70.51 lakh are male and 63.46 lakh are female voters.
There are demands to postpone the elections
Punjab Congress on Monday demanded postponement of Panchayat elections by three weeks. The Congress alleged irregularities during the nomination process and fears that similar irregularities may have occurred during the polls. A party delegation led by Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Pratap Singh Bajwa also met the Punjab State Election Commissioner in Chandigarh. Bajwa, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said that the delegation requested the State Election Commissioner to postpone the panchayat elections for three weeks. He alleged that massive irregularities occurred during the nomination process and that many papers were wrongly rejected. Bajwa said many opposition-backed candidates were not given no objection certificates when filing nominations. He also informed that it is the voter list of January 1, 2023 that is being considered for the Panchayat elections and not the voter list released on January 1, 2024 for the Lok Sabha elections.
AAP attacks Congress
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and MP Malvinder Singh Kang said that Bajwa was talking about postponing the elections fearing a heavy defeat. He said that villagers did not attach importance to Congress-backed candidates as they had seen in the past. This time the people decided to elect a candidate associated with AAP as Sarpanch. People want to support the Mann government to contribute to the progress of Punjab. Kang said in a statement that this is why the Akali Dal and Congress leaders are worried.
The AAP leader also alleged widespread violence during panchayat elections during the previous Congress and Akali governments. Kang said the AAP government has ended this culture and made elections more transparent, therefore our government decided that sarpanch should come from the village and not from any party. Congress and Akali leaders were disappointed by this. Earlier too, opposition parties accused the AAP government of misusing state mechanisms to reject nominations of opposition-backed candidates. (input language)
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