On a single day, Saturday, the 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab after weeks of vigorous campaigns, together with lone seat in the Union Territory- Chandigarh and four Lok Sabha constituencies in Himachal Pradesh will vote.
In Punjab, there are four major parties namely Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). Besides this party political contest there is stiff opposition from independent candidates; Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa at Faridkot and Amritpal Singh at Khadoor Sahib who have loyal followers of radical beliefs in their respective areas.
In order to ensure smooth conduct of elections, elaborate security arrangements have been put in place for all states and UT. Security agencies have identified as many as 5,000 polling stations as critical-vulnerable polling stations in Punjab.
“All necessary security arrangements have been made and effectively deployed a total number of 81,079 personnel including Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), Punjab Police and Home Guard Jawans from Punjab/Haryana/Rajasthan for ensuring free/fair/pacific conduct of Lok Sabha Elections 2024,” said DGP Gaurav Yadav on Friday.
According to him a total number of 24,451 polling stations had been established at 14,551 polling station locations across the State out of which about 5,000 had been identified as critical-vulnerable. There are 328 contenders vying for thirteen parliamentary constancies in Punjab.
To BJP which won all four Lok Sabha seats twice –in both2014 & 2019 election – unsuccessful attempt means that its future at national politics hangs precariously by having direct face-off between itself and sitting government headed by Congress party. On June one six assembly seats would go simultaneously with these ones Himachal Pradesh witnessed political upheaval few months ago when six MLAs rebelled against the party. This necessitated the byelections as these MLAs had been disqualified by State Legislative Assembly for violating party whip in February this year.
According to state electoral office, out of 7,992 total polling stations including two auxiliary polling stations, Himachal Pradesh has 369 such categorized as critical.
Kangra district alone has the highest number (118) of critical polling stations followed by Sirmour district (58) and Una district (51).
The fight for Chandigarh is between BJP and INDIA joint candidate fielded by Congress for Parliament. The stakes are high; BJP wants to keep the seat with them while on another hand Manish Tewari from Congress is fighting hard to unseat incumbent.
