Kapurthala, May 25
With more than 40 per cent polling stations declared sensitive in the district, strict security arrangements have been made by the administration to ensure smooth and fair voting in the gram panchayat elections tomorrow.

Deputy commissioner-cum-district electoral officer JM Balamurugan said out of the total 422 polling stations, 183 have been declared as sensitive. “Extra security personnel have been deployed at these places. Also, the police personnel are staging flag march around some of the sensitive stations,” he added.

In order to maintain law and order, as many as 2,177 police personnel would be deployed at these stations, the DC said, adding that 28 police parties would keep on patrolling these booths.

“No outsider would be allowed to enter any village during the polling in order to ensure free and fair elections. The polling parties have already been sent to their respective stations,” said Balamurgan.

The district electoral officer said voting would be held for 348 out of total 532 gram panchayats as 171 panchayats had already been elected unanimously in the district.

Besides, as per directions of the election commission polls to 12 main panchayats, from which 14 new gram panchayats were carved out, were postponed.

As many 3,910 candidates are in the fray for the poll. Each candidate would have to file his poll expenditure, which should not exceed Rs 12,000 with their returning officer concerned.

Amritsar, May 25
After the victory of SAD-BJP candidate Inderbeer Singh Bolaria in the Amritsar (South) bypoll, the residents here hope that the coalition government would stick to its promise of ensuring overall development of the holy city.

Notably, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal had camped in the holy city to gather support for the comfortable victory of Bolaria. Sukhbir Badal had promised Rs 900-crore investments for the facelift of the walled-city.

Similarly, BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu in a missive to the Punjab Chief Minister had urged him to create a corpus fund for Amritsar. Besides, he had asked the state government to invest the revenue collected from the auction of surplus government lands for the development.

Such a gesture would ensure the release of Rs 4,000 crore central grant under PM’s Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, which had been held up for the past four years due to inability of the local municipal corporation to match the grant.

Interestingly, Sukhbir had also announced that the entire Badal family would perform “langar sewa” at the Golden Temple for two consecutive days on some auspicious occasion after the bypoll was over. In addition, all the expenses of langar would be met by the Badals.

The promises also include cleaning of Parikarma and Guru Ram Dass langar building by the Badal family and SGPC members from the Malwa.

Installation of computerised lighting system and hi-tech sound system were the other assurances given by Sukhbir during electioneering. Developing circuit of heritage buildings to promote tourism in the holy city was another campaign promise.

Jalandhar, May 25
With a majority of trains on Delhi-Mumbai route being diverted or cancelled, owing to the violent Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan, thousands of passengers, including those from Punjab, have been left a harried lot. Several long-distance trains originating from Amritsar, Ferozepur and Jammu Tawi were also either cancelled or diverted on Sunday due to wide-scale disturbance between the Gangapur City and Bayana section on the Kota division.

According to railway sources, the (2904/2903) up and down Amritsar-Mumbai Central-Amritsar Golden Temple Mail trains were cancelled on Sunday. Similarly, the (9024/9023) up and down Ferozepur-Mumbai Central-Ferozepur Janta Express trains were also cancelled today.

Besides, the 2926 Amritsar-Bandra Terminal-Paschim Express was diverted via Mathura-Agra-Bhopal. The 2925 Amritsar-Bandra Terminal Paschim Express was also diverted via Bhopal-Agra-Mathura.

The 2478 Jammu Tawi-Jamnagar Super Fast was diverted via Mathura-Agra-Bhopal. The 2471 Bandra Terminal-Jammu Tawi Swaraj Express was also diverted via Bhopal-Agra-Mathura.

Besides the (2954/2953) up and down Hazrat Nizamuddin-Mumbai Central-Hazrat Nizamuddin August Kranti Express trains were cancelled.

The up and down (9020/9020A) Dehradun-Bandra/Delhi-Nimach Link Express trains were cancelled.

The up and down (2963/2964) Hazrat Nizamuddin-Udaipur-Hazrat Nizamuddin Intrercity Express trains were also cancelled today.

Similarly, the up and down (2416/2415) Hazrat Nizamuddin-Indore- Hazrat Nizamuddin Intercity Express and the up and down (2910 /2909) Hazrat Nizamuddin-Bandra Terminal-Hazrat Nizamuddin Garib Rath Express trains were cancelled today.

The 2452 New Delhi-Mumbai-Rajdhani Express and 2432 Hazrat Nizamuddin-Trivandrun Rajdhani Express trains were diverted to run via Mathura-Agra-Bhopal.

In the same way, the 2951 Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and the 2431A Trivandrun-Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express trains were diverted to run via Bhopal-Agra-Mathura.

Chandigarh, May 25
The State Information Commission (SIC), Punjab, has held that public authorities cannot reject RTI applications on the ground that the information request was not in the form prescribed by the State Government.

The Punjab Government had prescribed ‘Form A’ under the Punjab RTI Rules, 2007, in which RTI applicants were supposed to answer nine queries first before the RTI application could be entertained.

The form was challenged by a local lawyer Capt Navdeep Singh before the full bench of the Commission on the ground that it contravened the provisions of the RTI Act which did not prescribe any 
such form.

The ambiguity was compounded by the fact that one Bench of the Commission comprising P K Verma had held the application form to be mandatory while another bench of Rupan Deol Bajaj had held that there was no requirement of seeking information in the said format since the Act did not prescribe it.

While holding that a complaint filed under Section 18 of RTI Act was not maintainable, the full Bench, however, made it clear that the rules were only directory in nature and not mandatory and if a sufficiently clear application was made to any public authority then the same could not be rejected for the reason of not being in ‘Form A’.

The Bench also stated that the rules were meant to facilitate information and had to be construed liberally.

The commission also held that in case any PIO or appellate authority rejected an application on grounds of it not being in conformity of the state rules, the Commission could direct the supply of the information to the applicant.

Tarn Taran, May 25
On the eve of panchayat poll, 700 Punjab policemen staged flag march in this border district today to instill a sense of security among the people.

The march was flagged off by SSP H.S. Chahal from police post Kang.

The march was conducted at the areas which were declared poll sensitive in view of violent incidents witnessed on the eve of the zila parishad and block samitis elections.

Talking to The Tribune, SP (headquarters) Rachhpal Singh Ghuman said flag march were organised at all the four sub-divisional headquarters which include Goindwal Sahib, Bhikhiwnd and Patti.

He said all precautions were being taken to thwart attempts of the anti-social elements for disturbing peace in the border district. 

Hoshiarpur, May 25
Two young lovers killed themselves in a suicide pact by consuming some poisonous substance at Pathralian village on Saturday.

The deceased have been identified as Sukhwinder Kaur (22) and Ravi Kumar (24), both residents of the same village.

According to police sources, the deceased were in love for the past few years.

However, there families did not allow them to marry due to which the duo fled from their houses yesterday and committed suicide in fields.

They also informed a panchayat member about their suicide.

Meanwhile, the bodies have been sent to the Hoshiarpur civil hospital for the post-mortem examination. The police said it was waiting for the post-mortem report.