Punjab: 41% polling till 3 pm in Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll

Jalandhar: A voter turnout of nearly 41 per cent was recorded till 3 pm on Wednesday in the by-election to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat which is witnessing a four-cornered electoral battle.

Voting began at 8 am amid tight security and is set to continue till 6 pm, officials said.

The parliamentary seat fell vacant following the death of Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary due to a cardiac arrest during his party's Bharat Jodo Yatra in January. The AAP, which is the ruling party in the state, the Congress, BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal are vying to outdo each other in the Dalit stronghold.

According to the Election Commission's voter turnout app, 40.62 per cent polling was recorded till 3 pm.

A few incidents of scuffle and altercations were reported between the AAP and opposition party members at some booths.

Leaders of opposition parties accused the AAP of violating the model code of conduct by deploying outsiders at several booths, a charge denied by the ruling party.

AAP MLA from Amritsar's Baba Bakala assembly segment Dalbir Singh Tong was arrested for violating model code of conduct and was later released on bail.

The action came after Congress MLA from Shahkot Hardev Singh Laddi Sherowalia alleged that AAP MLA Tong, being an outsider, was moving in Shahkot which is part of the Jalandhar parliamentary constituency.

Sherowalia along with his supporters even blocked the vehicle of the AAP MLA and later called police. The AAP MLA was then taken to Shahkot police station.

The opposition party leaders said as per the instructions of the Election Commission, outsiders were mandated to leave the constituency after the poll campaign period was over.

Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring accused the AAP leaders of flouting the ECI guidelines to allegedly intimidate voters.

Warring, in a statement, said the Congress has filed a complaint against Baba Bakala MLA Dalbir Singh Tong, Amritsar (West) MLA Jasbir Singh Sandhu, Ludhiana (East) MLA Daljit Singh Grewal Bhola, Ludhiana (West) MLA Gurpreet Gogi, Jaitu MLA Amolak Singh and MLA Amritsar (Central) Ajay Gupta for allegedly being present in the Jalandhar constituency despite ECI guidelines.

Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma too wrote a letter to the chief election commissioner, alleging several AAP MLAs and leaders were present in the constituency.

Sharma also accused the AAP government of misusing the official machinery.

Congress candidate Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary, through her election agent, wrote a letter to the chief election commissioner, alleging AAP leaders and workers came from outside the constituency for campaigning and were still present in almost every village and ward.

In fact, it is these outsiders who are manning almost each and every booth and the entire Election Commission machinery has become a mere spectator to these gross violations of the election regulations, she alleged.

Akali leader Pawan Kumar Tinu too alleged that some AAP workers from Attari in Amritsar were deployed at one of the booths in Adampur.

In Jalandhar constituency, there are 16,21,800 eligible voters, including 8,44,904 males, 7,76,855 females, and 41 third genders.

Nineteen candidates, including four women, are in the fray.

The AAP has fielded former MLA Sushil Rinku, who quit the Congress, while the Congress has shown its faith in Karamjit Kaur, wife of Santokh Chaudhary.

The BJP has fielded Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, a Dalit Sikh, who quit the Akali Dal to join the saffron party. Atwal is the son of former Punjab Assembly Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, who had also joined the BJP.

The SAD has fielded its two-time MLA from the Banga seat Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi, a doctor. The SAD candidate is backed by its ally Bahujan Samaj Party. The Simranjit Singh Mann-led Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) has fielded Gurjant Singh.

There are 1,972 polling stations in the constituency and 497 of them have been identified as critical. A dedicated women-only polling station has been set up in each of the nine assembly segments, which are part of the Jalandhar parliamentary seat, the officials said.

The counting of votes will take place on May 13.