KHADOOR SAHIB, Punjab—Voting for Khadoor Sahib assembly bypoll will be held on Saturday at 210 voting booths. Various arrangements have been made by the concerned authorities to conduct free and fair polling.
The Khadoor Sahib seat had fallen vacant when Congress legislator Ramanjit Singh Sikki resigned in protest against the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Baath village in the segment. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had skipped the by-election to be able to concentrate on the state elections of 2017.
there are six candidates including Ravinder Singh Brahmpura from the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Puran Singh from Bahujan Samaj Party (Ambedkar) WHO are in fray. Whereas, Bhupinder Singh Bittu, Sumel Singh Sidhu, Anantjit Singh Saini, Sukhdev Singh Khosla and Harjit Singh are contesting the bypoll as independent candidates.
With both major opponents Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are out of the picture, only Congress rebel Bhupinder Singh Bittu and former AAP state convener Sumail Singh Sidhu can put up any serious fight to Ravinder, son of Akali stalwart and member of Parilament (MP) Ranjit Singh Brahmpura.
On directions of election commission (EC), all arrangements have been done by the administration and its teams have reached the respective polling stations, revealed district election officer-cum-deputy commissioner Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal.
Dhaliwal said there are total 1,87, 184 voters including 98,498 male and 88,681 female in the constituency who would decide over the fate of the contenders on Saturday. “Total 133 polling stations have been established, under which the voting would be held at 210 booths”, he said.
He said, “As many as 31 polling stations including Khadoor Sahib, Fatehabad, Mundapind and Manochahal Kalan have been declared as hyper sensitive, while 62 sensitive and 2 normal. On the other hand, 38 stations are being treated as normal.”
Senior superintendent of Police (SSP) Manmohan Sharma told that heavy security arrangements have been done to conduct the election in safe atmosphere in which voters can use his right to vote without any fear. He said around 2100 security men had been deployed. “Of them 1500 are from Punjab Police and rests are from six paramilitary forces which are here to assist us in ensuring unprecedented security arrangements”, he added.
As per EC’s notifications, counting of the votes will be conducted on February 16 and result will be declared on same day. After voting, all the EVMs will be kept in Khadoor Sahib College amid high security arrangements.
