Amritsar, April 17
The district election office decided to install a special Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) with brail to assist 25 visually impaired voters to cast their ballots. Bhagwant Singh, District Election Officer-cum- Deputy Commissioner, said for this a polling booth (number 117) would be set up in the Amritsar North assembly segment.

He said in order to facilitate hassle-free voting for the physically challenged, temporary ramps would be raised and companions would be allowed till voting room.

He confirmed that no person filed nomination papers on the first day for the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency.

Meanwhile, so far there are 13 persons who have shown interest in contesting from the seat and were in touch with the district election office to file papers.

Among those in the fray would be Navjot Singh Sidhu of SAD-BJP, OP Soni of Congress, Lt-Gen BKN Chhibber of Bahujan Samaj Party, Major Gurnam Singh Gill of Rashtriya Raksha Dal, Ajay Seth of Shiv Sena Hindustan, Gurdial Singh Sodhi of Janta Dal United while the independents are Kanwaljit Singh, a news reader on Door Darshan Jalandhar, Jaswant Singh Randhawa, Ajit Singh Dharampura, Sham Lal Gandhi, Naresh Singh Phadoria.

He said about 13,000 persons from various departments of the Punjab government, including 1,800 from the central government departments, have been requisitioned for poll duty.

Initially, they would be appointed as micro-observers and if the need arose, then for polling duty as well, he added. Allaying fears of the teaching fraternity and other departments, he said staff would be assigned duty as per their pay scale and seniority.

Nomination papers could be filed till April 24 and these could be withdrawn till April 27. 

Jalandhar, April 17
Five companies of the paramilitary forces will be deployed at the 68 hyper-sensitive and 315 sensitive polling booths in the Jalandhar (reserved) parliamentary constituency.

Addressing mediapersons, District Election Officer Ajeet Singh Pannu and SSP RK Jaiswal said four paramilitary companies would be deployed at 68 hyper-sensitive polling booths falling in Nakodar (18), Shahkot (24), Kartarpur (1), Jalandhar-Central (4), Jalandhar-North (11), Jalandhar-Cantonment (7) and Adampur (3) assembly segments. There were 1,764 polling booths in the constituency, Pannu said.

The deployment plan of the Punjab Police and paramilitary troops will however be finalised in consultation with EC observers who are expected to reach here by April 24, Jaiswal said.

He reiterated that all arrangements were in place to ensure the conduct of free and fair polls in the constituency.

The SSP said as many as 8,700 arms license holders have been instructed to deposit their arms with designated arms dealers. There are 23 arms dealers in the city who have been instructed to get CCTVs with a week’s video recording back up installed at their shops within the next seven days, he added.

Besides, they were told to get sensors and sirens fitted at their shops to check robbery attempts by miscreants,” Jaiswal added. We are short of as many as 5,792 state police personnel to complete the deployment plan and a requisition in this regard has been sent to the officials concerned. As many as 92 patrolling parties will be deputed to monitor poll activities in the constituency, he said. 

Amritsar, April 17
Punjab Federation of University and College Teachers Organisations (PFUCTO) today threatened to boycott the ongoing university examinations in protest against the non-implementation of UGC pay scales as per the notification of the ministry of human resource development by the state government.

Dr. SS Dhillon, president PFUCTO, said teachers would boycott the examinations for two days after giving a short notice to the government. He said they had written to the state government four times during the last one month.

However, it failed to give any response, he rued. He said this had forced them to resort to protest which would otherwise cause unavoidable inconvenience to thousands of students and delay the next academic session.

Dr Dhillon pointed out that the model code of conduct did not apply to the cause of the delay in the Implementation of UGC pay scales. The pay revision was under the central pay commission under which all the relevant notifications had already been issued therefore it was only a case of completion of process. He said CM Parkash Singh Badal, in a meeting on February 13, had decided to implement the pay scales, but nothing had happened thereafter. — TNS