Bathinda, March 24
Few days after the announcement of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate from the Bathinda Parliamentary Constituency Kuldeep Singh, a 34-year-old woman accused him of exploitation on the pretext of offering her district president-ship of the Bathinda Woman Cell.

The woman accused the candidate of sexual exploitation, making an MMS and allegedly pocketing Rs 2.5 lakh as party fund.

The woman accused the candidate while addressing media outside the office of SSP where she lodged a written police complaint.

A resident of Parasram Nagar, the woman said that now, the party candidate, Kuldeep Singh was earlier general secretary of the party.

Kuldeep, however, termed the allegations as baseless and said he did not know the woman. “I am not even aware of the area where she is residing leave aside meeting her. I am surprised over her allegations and repeated phone calls from all quarters over the issue,” Kuldeep said. He termed the allegations coming out of political rivalry with his opponents and jealousy for his smooth and good response he is getting from the constituency.

The woman, however, accused the candidate of issuing threats and blackmailing using the MMS.

“All I want is my MMS clipping back which was prepared after clandestinely mixing some intoxicant in a house at Sardulgarh, a couple of months ago by Kuldeep,” said Sarabjit Kaur.

In her complaint, Sarabjit allege that she came in contact with Kuldeep Singh a couple of months ago, while actively participating in various political rallies of the party. She alleged that Kuldeep allured her for the post of district president of the BSP Woman Cell, Bathinda, and pocketed Rs 2.5 lakh in four or five installments.

The woman accompanied by her sister and a local leader alleged that despite a written complaint at the Kotwali police station two days ago, no action had been taken by the police.

“I even rang up at the 181 police helpline. But the police was yet to act upon the complaint,” she said.

SSP Bathinda Gurpreet Bhullar said though the woman was yet to meet him, an enquiry had already been marked by SP (headquarter) to the Canal SHO in this regard. “I will again check it out with the SP to look into the present status of the complaint,” the SSP added.

Bathinda, March 24
Students of polytechnic colleges, who are preparing for their second and third semester examinations, are still waiting for the results of the first and second semester examinations that were held in November and December last year.

Although it is not mandatory for students to have cleared all the papers of the previous semester before appearing in the next semester examinations, delay in declaration of results may spell trouble for those who fail to clear one or more papers and have to re-appear for them.

Principal of Government Polytechnic Bathinda, Yadwinder Singh, said, “While the results for all the papers of the sixth and fifth semester have been declared, results of a few papers of the fourth and third semesters are still awaited and the results of none of the papers of the second and first semesters have been declared. The delay in the declaration of results causes trouble to the students who have to reappear as they don’t get enough time to prepare for the examinations.”

Examinations postponed

Yadwinder Singh said the delay would have caused greater trouble to the students if the upcoming examinations had not been postponed. “Earlier, the examinations were scheduled to start in the last week of April. After the dates for the Lok Sabha elections were announced, the examinations were postponed. They will now start on May 19,” he said.

Simultaneous preparation

The delay in declaration of results spells bigger trouble for academically weaker students who also have to prepare for reappear examinations as well.

“Most of the times, students have to appear for supplementary examinations of the previous semester on the preparatory holiday between two papers of the advanced semester. In worst cases, a student may have to appear for two examinations on the same day in the morning and evening session. In such a case, if the student has had enough time to prepare for examinations, he/she would be better-equipped. But a delay in declaration of results robs the students of whatever time they have,” said Harwinder Singh, principal of the Hi-Tech Polytechnic, Bathinda.

Lesser staff

The registrar-cum-examination controller at the Department of Technical Education, Punjab, Dr Arunachalam, cited manpower problem for the delay in the declaration of results.

“The teachers are paid Rs 8 to 10 for evaluating one answer sheet. For a majority of teachers, this remuneration is too little and they choose not to be a part of the evaluation process. It is not binding on teachers to participate in the process. We manage with only 22 to 25 per cent of teachers for evaluating 10 lakh answer sheets,” he said.

Dr Arunachalam said the delay in the declaration of results was the main handicap of the semester system. He said the results would be declared within the next 10 days.

Bathinda, March 24
The Congress-PPP candidate from Bathinda, Manpreet Singh Badal has been issued maximum show causes notices for violating code of conduct. Neither has Manpreet Badal sought permissions for holding rallies and public meetings nor has he maintained election expenditure registers.

Manpreet was served a show cause notice on March 20, March 22 and March 23 for violating the code of conduct. As per the poll conduct, any political party or candidate contesting election will have to seek permission before holding such event. While seeking information, the party or candidate is also supposed to submit an estimate of the expenses that would be incurred on holding event. “This includes expected number of chairs, tents, sound system, tea of coffee used at the event. All the items are to be enlisted as per the rates given in the rate list district election officer has fixed,” said the Election Office officers.

After the permission is given, the video surveillance team (VST) covers the entire function video graphing it. The CD prepared is submitted to the expenditure monitoring team that works under Assistant Returning Officer (ARO). The team matches the expenses incurred with that of undertaking candidate or party had given while seeking permission.

All the three rallies on Badal were held in the Buladhewala area. On March 23, Badal and his supporters canvassed in nine villages without seeking any permission. Since Badal did not send a list of expenses to be incurred, the ARO office calculated expenses own considering that at least 50 chairs were used at each event. The total expenses incurred on this tour were calculated at Rs 4,500.

Interestingly, officials of the Election Office said that earlier, People’s Party of Punjab-Congress candidate Manpreet Badal had not set up an office. “After issuing notices, we were always in a fix as to where should we send these notices. Since his election office has been sent to Harchand cinema now, it had become easier to send notices,” said another officer adding that even the opening of office was not informed to the District Election Office.

By asking the political parties to seek permission before holding any political gathering, the administration’s main aim is to avert any kind of clash with political opponent. “Not informing us can backfire for a candidate. If an opponent of his or her is holding rally at same place, it could mean clash of groups, which will create law and order problem,” said a senior official at the Election Office.

Official spokesperson of Manpreet Badal said his office had applied for permissions late. “Due to Sunday, we could not seek prior permission for holding rallies. We have given answer to all the show cause notices and are now, we are ensuring that all permissions are taken in advance,” he said.

While there was no detail of the expenses incurred by PPP-Congress, from amongst other political parties, till March 22, SAD has recorded highest money spent on election campaigning. Till March 22, SAD had spent Rs 8,13,733, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Rs 17,846, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rs 15,438 and the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (CPI ML) had spent Rs 14,220.

All these parties are maintaining expenditure registers, whose shadow registers are maintained at the offices of respective Assistant Returning Officers.

Bathinda, March 24
Weather played spoilsport on the first day of the door-to-door campaigning to be done by Veenu Badal, wife of the Congress-People’s Party of Punjab joint candidate for the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat.

Manpreet’s better-half was scheduled to begin canvassing for her husband today starting with door-to-door campaigning at Ward No. 6 on Monday morning but failed to reach the city in time due to the inclement weather.

She managed to reach the city only by the afternoon and addressed a nukkad meeting with the women residents of the ward.

Rekindling the Rooth episode, she attacked the Nanhi Chhan campaign by the Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal and calling it a ‘drama’, she questioned why Badal’s daughter-in-law was nowhere to be seen when the women teachers were sitting on dharna. She also questioned as to why the Bathinda MP did not see to it that the policemen who took away the quilts from protesting teachers and were responsible for the death of a 14-month-old child, were not booked.

Apart from asking the women to use their right to vote in the upcoming elections, she asked them to vote for change and a better future for their children. “I am not asking you to vote for my husband. I am requesting you to take note of the fact that the SAD-BJP government did nothing for the future of your children and instead, pushed the younger generation towards habit-forming substances. Everyone knows who is responsible for trafficking drugs into the state,” she said, referring to the Jagdish Bhola case.

Mentioning the scams in the education department in the passing, she attacked the state government for being oblivious of the deteriorating condition of education sector of the state.

“To gauge the level of education sector in the state, one has to go to the government schools which cater to a large section of the population. Shortage of benches, teachers, delay in the delivery of books and uniforms, dilapidated buildings etc-are these any marks of development? Students of higher secondary classes of government schools can’t write in proper English. What will our children learn in such schools?” she questioned.

Also present at the nukkad meeting were general secretary of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee and former Bathinda MLA Harminder Singh Jassi, former municipal councillor of Ward No. 6 Iqbal Singh Dhillon, general secretary of the District Congress Comiittee (urban) Rupinder Bindra and others.

Bathinda, March 24
The district health authorities observed World Tuberculosis (TB) Day today by holding a seminar at GNM Training School. The theme of the seminar was, “Reach the three million A TB test, treatment and cure for all.”

Civil Surgeon Dr Ajay Sahni and district TB control officer Dr Ashok Monga informed the nursing students about the symptoms and treatment of TB. Dr Sahni said some of the symptoms of this disease were regular cough, losing weight and persisting fever.

He informed the students about free sputum tests conducted for diagnosing TB.

Dr Monga said four treatment units, 14 microscopy centres and 370 DOTS centres had been set up in the district to provide treatment.

Students were asked to encourage TB patients to complete their treatment course and not to leave it half way. “Leaving the course in between makes a patient resistant to TB drugs and curing him or her becomes more difficult,” he said.