Punjab bypoll: Voting for Taran Taran Assembly seat underway, electors reach early

Chandigarh, Nov 11 (IANS) Polling for Punjab’s Tarn Taran Assembly seat began on Tuesday, with electors being seen reaching polling stations even before voting started at 7 a.m.

The polling will continue till 6 p.m. Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C. said there are 1,92,838 voters in the constituency, which includes 1,00,933 men, 91,897 women and eight third-gender voters.

“There has been no report of any delay in starting the poll process,” an electoral officer told IANS here.

The counting of votes will be held on November 14. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of AAP MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal, who had won the seat with 52,935 votes, defeating Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harmeet Singh Sandhu.

Fifteen candidates are in the fray. They include Sukhwinder Kaur of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Harjit Singh Sandhu of the BJP, Harmeet Singh Sandhu of the Aam Aadmi Party and Karanbir Singh of the Congress.

The Chief Electoral Officer said there are 1,357 service voters, 1,657 voters aged above 85 years, 306 NRI voters, and 1,488 voters with disabilities.

The number of young voters aged between 18 and 19 years stands at 3,333.

There are 222 polling stations set up at 114 polling station locations, of which 60 are urban and 162 are rural.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) last week directed the suspension of Tarn Taran Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ravjot Kaur Grewal for allegedly interfering in the by-election process.

The action comes after Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal met the EC-appointed observer and submitted a written complaint of misuse of power by the SSP to help the ruling Aam Aadmi Party.

The SAD alleged that the AAP government was using the state police to influence the by-election process. In the memorandum, the SAD claimed that party workers and leaders from Tarn Taran had been “forcibly detained” by police officials ahead of the bypoll.

They alleged that the official machinery was being misused to target the candidate Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa, her family members and SAD supporters.

--IANS

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