Bathinda, April 15
Fifteen independent candidates from the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency, though holding little significance in terms of getting vote chunk, are having a field day, basking in the attention they are getting.

Hotelier, former municipal councilor, ex-serviceman and unemployed youngster are some of the independent candidates trying their luck from the constituency. Interestingly enough, of the all 15 candidates, only a handful are canvassing, while others have preferred to remain silent.

The independent candidates include Ashish, Satish Arora, Swarn Singh, Sushil Kumar, Kartar Singh, Sanjiv Kumar Thapar, Gurcharan Singh, Jaspal Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Dyal Chand, Jagdeep Singh Gehri, Bhupesh Kumar, Manpreet Singh, Ramesh Kumar and Vijay Kumar.

Among them, hotelier Satish Arora, former municipal councilor Vijay Kumar, Ashish Kumar representing the Christian community, Jagdeep Singh Gehri representing the Dalit community and youngster Sushil Jindal are the few ones who are campaigning to garner votes. Jagdeep Singh Gehri is the younger brother of leader of Lok Janshakti Party, which now has alliance with the BJP.

Satish Arora was one of the many people from Bathinda who had filed papers for being nominated from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Disappointed with the selection of singer-turned politician Jassi Jasraj from Bathinda seat, Arora chose to contest as an independent candidate.

In the tow are the members of his Hotel, Restaurant and Resorts Association as well as few others who disagree with the AAP’s candidate selection. Arora says that while Manpreet Badal of the Congress sacrificed entire People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) for his own seat, the SAD-BJP government’s claims of development, too, seem to be hollow. When elected, he plans to make voting compulsory.

Similarly, Vijay Kumar is promising basic amenities to people asking them to vote for a candidate who is from “amongst” them. Another candidate Kartar Singh from Dhobiana Basti is an ex-serviceman who wants to control the spiraling rates of sand and gravel that have hit the common man hard. Earlier, he had contested and lost last municipal corporation elections.

Most of these candidates are mainly focusing on Bathinda city only despite the fact that there are eight other Vidhan Sabha constituencies to be covered.

For other candidates, it is an elated feeling to see their names and election symbols on the EVMs.

“I am a man with limited means and almost no money. How can my campaigning match with that of those who have huge funds available from political parties,” says Sushil Jindal, who prefers to campaign on his cycle.

Pleading anonymity, another candidate added that after filing the nomination papers, all he has done is tracking his application.

“At least my name would be there in the annals of history unlike common people who die unnoticed without any record,” he said.

Quiet intriguingly, not all the candidates from political parties are actively canvassing. Consider the case of Geeta Rani from the Akhil Bharatiya Shiv Sena party who claimed to have suffered a stroke on April 14 and was admitted to the Civil Hospital.

“I returned from the hospital in afternoon and cannot talk about any issue,” said Geeta who had earlier too been in fray for the Vidhan Sabha elections.

Bathinda, April 15
Only seven months above the minimum age (25 years) for becoming a member of the Indian Parliament (MP), and Ashish Enoch is facing bigwigs like SAD Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Manapreet Singh Badal and other independent candidates in the battle for the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat.

More than the fight of the ballot, the huge responsibility of addressing the issues of the 50,000-strong voter base of the Christian community of the constituency weighs heavy on this IELTS trainer. Apparently perturbed and fed up of the fact that none of the political parties has heeded to their demands in the past, the Christian community in the Bathinda constituency fielded Ashish as its own candidate.

“I am confident because of the trust that the community members have reposed in me. To serve people, one doesn’t need experience, as ability, integrity and knowledge of purpose is all one needs,” said Enoch who is yet to begin campaigning in the constituency.

Speaking to Bathinda Tribune, Father George C Masih, state president of the United Christian Welfare Association and a resident of Bathinda, said, “Christians are an integral part of the society in Punjab and yet, the policy makers, political parties and authorities make us feel neglected. We have also noticed there is not even a single MLA, MP, IPS, IAS, PCS officer from our community in the state. Tired of asking the political parties, we decided to make our voice heard and fielded our own candidate.”

Among the demands of the Christian community are declaration of restricted holidays like Christmas, Good Friday and Easter as compulsory holidays like Diwali, Holi etc. These festivals should also be considered at par with the festivals celebrated by the followers of other religions, the community wants.

Other demands of the community include facility to obtain caste certificates from the government; availability of space for building a community hall for the community so that it is not forced to hold all its functions on the church premises; sufficient land be granted to the community to build graveyards; MLAs, MCs, MPs to loosen the strings of their purses for the Christian community as well and political parties to keep the community in mind while devising policies and manifestos. Another demand made by the community is that there should be reservation of seats in the corporation, assembly and parliamentary elections.

Masih added that the Christian community had submitted a memorandum of demands with the candidates during the assembly elections held in 2012 but did not feel happy and satisfied with the candidates. Before the assembly elections, the community had even announced that they will not extend support to anyone unless they promised that community’s needs will be looked after.

Bathinda, April 15
The randomisation of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) was conducted today in the presence of general observer Dalip Kumar Wasnikar.

Representatives of various political parties and independent candidates were also present at the exercise wherein the EVMs were randomised using the software made available from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Punjab.

For the six constituencies, there are 1,029 polling booths that will have 1,135 control units (CU) and 2242 ballot units (BU) wherein 10 per cent of each has been kept in reserve.

Since the number of candidates, contesting election for the Bathinda seat, is more than 15, two control units would be attached with each ballot unit.

The report of the EVMs randomisation was given to the representatives of various parties and independent candidates. District Election Officer Kamal Kishore Yadav said next randomisation would be conducted on April 21.

Later observer Wasnikar and the DEO Yadav conducted inspection of the strong room where the EVMs are stored.

Bathinda, April 15
The employees of the District Election Office today took oath to conduct the Lok Sabha elections in a free and fair manner without working under any kind of influence.

A part of the Systematic Voter Education Electoral Participation (SVEEP) campaign, the District Election Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav administered the entire election staff take the oath. ADC Rajiv Prashar, election tehsildar Bharat Bhushan and others were also present on the occasion. The employees took the oath that maintaining their faith in the Indian democracy they will utilise their right to vote without any fear and without any bias towards color, caste or creed.

Bathinda, April 15
The independent candidates today alleged that District Election Office is charging Rs 20,000 to give them list of voters of one Vidhan Sabha constituency, a facility that recognised political parties are being provided free of charge.

Candidate Satish Arora said that Rs 20,000 per constituency is being asked for. “With nine Vidhan Sabha constituencies, we will end up paying Rs 1.80 lakh for all voters’ lists alone. The same lists are being provided free of any charge to the candidates of political parties,” he said.

Arora also raised the issue at meeting with District Election Officer conducted on Monday. He added that the list is priced at Rs 2 per page. When the same list is photocopied from market, it costs 50 paise per page, he added. He said everyone would be provided lists for free as the independent candidates are already paying security deposits as well as spending on canvassing from their own pockets.

The District Election Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav said all the recognised political parties get the lists free, while others are charged Rs 2 per page. “We go by the directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI),” he said.

Bathinda, April 15
More than 10 days after the allocation of budget and three days after the Director of the Education Department released the letter extending the drawing and disbursing powers of the schools in-charges, the office of the District Education Officer endorsed the letter today and sent the same to the schools.

In the letter, marked to all the 150 drawing & disbursing officers (in-charges, principals or heads of the government senior secondary schools and government high schools), it has been mentioned that their DD powers that had lapsed on March 31 have now been extended thereby allowing them to withdraw funds to pay the salaries of the teachers in the schools under them.

The teachers had staged a protest outside the treasury office in Bathinda on March 31 and April 1 against the delay in the payment of their salaries. The teachers had even submitted a memorandum of demands with the Deputy Commissioner of Bathinda threatening that if they were not paid the salaries for the past three months soon, they would have to resort to boycotting the rehearsal on April 6.

In an attempt to control the extent of damage, the treasury office was directed to release the salaries against the bills submitted for only the month of January at midnight on March 31. The teachers continued their dharna on April 1 demanding that salaries be released for the rest of the months as well.

Bathinda, April 15
Baba Farid Group of Institutions organised a two-day workshop on computer network security in association with IIT Delhi (ACM) in which around 150 students of BFGI and other institutions participated.

CISCO-certified professionals Pankaj and Neeraj provided practical knowledge about networking to the students.

On the first day of the workshop, experts shared information about working of OSI model with the students. They discussed practical information about protocols, internet protocols, hardware devices, IP addressing and sub-netting.

On the second day of the workshop, the experts had discussions on routing, configuration, switching work method and application layers. At the end of the workshop, certificates along with the software kits were given to the selected students as a token of appreciation.

Deputy director, academics, BFGI, Dr Pradeep Kaura congratulated the staff and the Computer Department for the successful completion of the workshop. He also thanked the experts from IIT Delhi (ACM) for sparing their time to share their knowledge.

BFGI chairman, Gurmeet Singh Dhaliwal, congratulated the students for their selection in the National Network Security Championship 2014.

Bathinda, April 15
The Association of Civil Engineering Students (ACES) of Giani Zail Singh Punjab Technical University Campus celebrated their annual technical function Sanrachna-2014. The chief guest at the function was Deputy Chief Engineer (Civil), GNDTP, Bathinda, Prem Sagar Garg.

In his key-note address, he emphasised upon the importance of a civil engineer as a nation builder. He also shared valuable experiences of his professional career spanning for more than thirty years.

Campus director Prof Jasbir Singh Hundal congratulated the students for conducting the function and encouraged them to organise such technical programmes twice a year.

He said such programmes helped a lot in polishing the technical and communicational skills of the students.

In his welcome address, head of the Department of Civil Engineering, Dr Sanjiv Aggarwal, explained the functioning of ACES since its inception in 1993 and its efforts to organise annual tech fests ever since, under various titles such as Neenv (foundation), Nirmaan (construction) and now Sanrachna (structure).

Apart from conventional events such as technical paper presentation, poster presentation, model making, technical quiz, debate and group discussion, some innovative events like Mock Campus Administrative Exam (M-CASE), and My Dream Campus were also conducted during this function.

A large number of undergraduate students of the department participated in these competitive events. Prabhash Kumar and Khemender Rishi of the 2011 batch won the first prize in technical paper presentation, whereas the second prize was bagged by Chandan Kumar and Manish Kumar of 2012 batch.

Harmanbir of the 2013 batch won the group discussion event with Paramveer of the 2012 batch being the runner-up. Mohd Zubair and Prabhash of the 2011 batch won the poster-making competition with Jashpreet and Trishnasree of the 2012 batch securing the second position.

The M-Case event was won by Akshay of the 2013 batch, whereas Satish of the 2011 batch was the runner-up. My Dream Campus event was won by Shubham and Deepak of the 2010 batch followed by Muddasir and Rohit of the 2012 batch at the second position.

In the evening, the chief guest and campus director gave away the prizes to the winners at the closing ceremony of the function.

Dr Rakesh Singla, faculty coordinator, ACES, proposed the vote of thanks to mark the closure of the function.