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68 pc polling recorded, officials blame hot weather
Model polling booths fail to impress voters
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Food discount scheme for first-time voters turns futile
Ex-Mayor thrashes Congress worker
One killed in accident
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68 pc polling recorded, officials blame hot weather
Jalandhar, April 30 The drive had been carried out, with the administration expecting to raise the voter participation by at least 10 per cent. However, going by the data which the District Election Office provided till this evening, there had been hardly any tangible result on this count. Officials, however, believe that an extremely hot weather today was one reason for the low turnout. The polling remained good from 7 am to 10 am. However, as the day continued to get hotter, the queues started becoming thinner, with just one or two persons walking in. The polling restarted after 4:30 pm when the sun started coming down a little. Even as there has been an increase of 5.84 per cent in the Jalandhar (West) Assembly segment, there was only a marginal increase in the poll percentage of Nakodar, Phillaur, Jalandhar (North) and Jalandhar (Central). The other four Assembly seats rather saw a fall in poll percentage. In Adampur where SAD candidate Pawan Tinu is a sitting MLA, the poll percentage has dipped from 69.15 per cent to 65.5. The administration had held a series of exercises and spent huge funds by launching Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme in colleges across the city, roping in college ambassadors, holding radio shows, installing catchy signages across the city, taking out SVEEP Rath to low vote percentage areas of 2009 Lok Sabha and 2012 Assembly areas, organising signature campaign, distributing DC’s appeal copies at each house across the parliamentary seat and even organising an air show. The ECI had even appointed awareness observer for the first time to ensure that voter awareness programme is executed well but perhaps the extremely hot weather played the spoilsport. Peaceful polling
The much-awaited polling day finally passed off peacefully today, leaving behind a mixed bag of memories for voters, partcularly first-timers. While it gave the consistent voters an opportunity to speak out their mind on the prevailing situation in the district, it gave an elated feeling to first-time voters in the district who went gaga on seeing the blue ink on their finger. At some places, young voters’ turnout was quite high, but at other places, it was only 1 per cent. Many Army personnel found it hard to understand the Gurmukhi ballot paper. Public transportation recorded just 2 per cent of the occupancy compared to other days. Jalandhar Tribune brings to you a bird’s eye view of the polling day that would come only after five years! Armymen at a loss with Gurmukhi ballot paper
Thousands of Army personnel posted here were taken by surprise on Wednesday when on visiting the polling booth, they found that the ballot paper pasted on the electronic voting machines (EVMs) was printed in Gurmukhi. Since, a majority of them could not read and understand Punjabi, they looked for the party symbols printed next to the candidate’s name. Although they could relate with the national symbols of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), they failed to acknowledge "takdi" with Modi. 'Yeh daag accha hai'
Although the ink applied on the finger after casting a ballot is always a matter of pride and amusement for everybody, this time many children, mostly minors, also could not resist the craze of the blue ink. In some polling stations like booth No. 85, even two to three year olds were seen pleading poll officials to apply ink on their fingers! City Bus Service records 20 pc occupancy
Due to the proximity of various polling booths in every nook and corner of the district, the city bus service recorded only 20 per cent of the total occupancy compared to normal days. According to Praveen Olivera, manager, City Bus Service, the company earned just Rs 20,000 compared to around Rs 1 lakh it earns on an ordinary day. Ill-trained poll officials sent many home
Due to the lack of proper training to polling staff, many voters could not cast their vote on the polling day after they failed to produce any identity proof other than the voter slip. In some places like booth Nos. 99 and 100, such voters were not even allowed to enter the polling booth by Punjab police personnel. Although it was clearly mentioned on the voter slip that it itself was a valid identity proof, they were told to bring some identity proof along with the voter slip to cast their ballot. Although some did come back, many preferred to stay back home in the scorching heat. CRPF men not served food
According to CRPF jawans posted for the last two days at various polling booths established in rural areas, they were not served dinner and breakfast since Tuesday night. Although feeling pity on them, the police staff from the local police station did serve them tea in the morning. These daring security personnel from one of the elite paramilitary forces were found guarding the booth without food for more than 24 hours. Senior citizens and physically challenged a harassed lot
Although the Election Commission of India made it mandatory to provide wheel-chairs at the polling booths to facilitate old and physically disabled voters, the district administration failed to do so. At booth No. 19 in Model Town, it took almost an hour for a 91-year-old voter Balraj Singh to walk up to the polling booth from his car that was parked a little away from the booth due to heavy rush. More shockingly, his family haD to get his walking stand from their house, for him to reach inside the polling booth. No takers for SVEEP discount
Although the district administration had announced discounts at various food outlets for the first-time voters in the district, it failed to motivate youths to 'Chalo to the polling booths'. According to the staff of Heat 7 and Sunny Side Up, only two-three youths availed the discount at their hotels. Although the day did record its hits and misses, it has gone only after fixing the fate of the candidates who would be the people’s representative for the next five years to come. |
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Model polling booths fail to impress voters
Jalandhar, April 30 While they delivered all basic arrangements needed at a regular booth, the promise, of extraordinary facilities, made by the administration, remained undelivered. Barring wheelchairs and clean drinking water, a majority of the model polling booths in the city were seen to be lacking the other facilities that were promised. Some of the booth staff themselves admitted that during their training, big promises had been made and they were told that there would be proper videography, a welcome for voters, ambulance service, proper furniture for people waiting in queues, nylon separators instead of coir ropes and other elaborate arrangements. For voters waiting in queues, merely school benches were kept outside the booths. While lacklustre model booths greeted voters at Sain Dass AS Senior Secondary School and Nehru Garden School in the city, the state of booths in the Cantt area were better with red carpet, flower pots, plush furniture, fans and drinking water facilities. Swarn Kaur (in her late eighties), who walked into a Nehru Garden polling booth with the support of a walking stick to cast her vote, said no one attended to her or asked her if The entrance staff and Red Cross volunteers at the Sain Dass AS Senior Secondary School were wary. They were seen personally escorting a number of elderly and special voters inside the booths on wheelchairs. Polling staff of the four booths at the school also said the volunteers had taken special pain since morning to ensure that voters should be made comfortable. Barring these, model booths were also set up at Phillaur, Nakodar, Shahkot, Kartarpur and Adampur. As many as 30 SVEEP volunteers deputed through PAHAL, an NGO, at eight booths of the city were seen toiling at their respective booths to make voters comfortable. Under the campaign, the members of SVEEP and PAHAL under the patronage of the DEO-cum-Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar, guided the voters. They were also seen mobilising voters to vote. They were specially deputed on the DC’s request. Anup Aryan, Gaurav Thakur, Himanshu Yadav, Ramesh Kumar, Abhishek Khandelwal, Abhishek Bhartiya, Kushwant Singh Chahal, Gagan Sharma, Raj Kumar, Rachna, Manjinder and Pawandeep Kaur were among the volunteers present.
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Food discount scheme for first-time voters turns futile
Jalandhar, April 30 To motivate them, the District Election Office had kicked off a scheme under which such voters could avail 20 per cent discount at certain restaurants in the city on the polling day. Perhaps due to the lack of proper publicity, only a few customers managed to turn up. District Election Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner Varun Roojam stated in a press statement that first- time voters could avail 20 per cent discount in six restaurants, including Head Quarters, Sunny Side Up, Heat 7 and Wimpy by showing the indelible ink on their fingers. Interestingly, some of the restaurants refused to grant such discounts as their staff said they did not have any directions in this regard from their manager. Kamlesh, who is working with the Head Quarters restaurant, said: "We did not get any directions from the manager or other seniors regarding the discount for the first-time voters," he said. He said no such customer had visited the restaurant so far to ask for such discount and no staff know about it. Tarun Dabral, manager, Sunny Side Up, said only seven such customers have turned up so far. However, he was expecting much more than that. Dhiraj, manager of Heat 7 restaurant, said though he was expecting many such customers, only four had turned up so far. Possibly, more customers would come by evening. May be lack of publicity was the reason behind the less turnout, he said. However, many first-time voters got to know about the scheme when they were asked to give their opinion regarding the same. Sunny Muldoon, a local resident, said he did not know about the scheme. Had he knew about it, he would have chalked out some plan till now. Savneet, another resident, said she was not aware of it. However, she had exercised her right to franchise.
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Ex-Mayor thrashes Congress worker
Jalandhar April 30 There was a confusion over the working of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), which stopped working for about two hours this afternoon. Congress workers alleged that though top police officials, including ADCP-1 Naresh Dogra, were present on the occasion, they did not intervene. After the situation got worse, DCP Tulsi Ram reached the spot to pacify the infuriated Congress workers but in vain. High drama prevailed as Subhash’s wife Reeta went on the congested streets of the colony raising her voice against the SAD leaders. Extra force was rushed into the booth to control the situation. Congress workers also levelled allegations against former chairman of Jalandhar Improvement Trust Baljit Singh Neelamahal for allegedly tinkering with the EVM at the polling booth No 168 as a new balloting unit was being installed to replace the faulty one. Reeta alleged that after the polling got suspended around 2:10pm, former Trust chairman Baljit Singh Neelamahal entered the polling room where the EVM was kept. “Neelamahal along with other SAD leaders had bolted the room and remained there for over an hour. We suspect that he allegedly tinkered with the EVM”, she alleged. “When my husband was having arguments with SAD leader Suresh Sehgal that why Neelamahal was allowed to enter the polling room, the Sehgal went abusive and started thrashing him. When I reached the spot, Sehgal also misbehaved with me,” Reeta said. While terming the allegations baseless, Neelamahal said he was the election in charge of the party and could go inside the polling booth. Soon after the incident, Jalandhar candidate Chaudhary Santok Singh’s son Vikram Chaudhary reached the spot along with several Congress workers and raised slogans against Suresh Sehgal. Congressmen also took on police officials for becoming a mute spectator to the incident. “We demand immediate registration of an FIR against Sehgal. It is clearly a case of hooliganism by the SAD leader,” Reeta said. Sehgal termed the allegations politically motivated and said, “I am a responsible citizen of Jalandhar. I have not touched Subhash. His wife is levelling allegations because she was defeated by my sister-in-law Suman Sehgal in the last MC elections.” Sehgal also denied the allegations levelled against Neelamahal. Police officials also misbehaved with mediapersons when they tried to enter the booth. ADCP Naresh Dogra said police would take action after receiving complaint. Two hurt in clash
Two persons were reportedly injured in another clash between SAD and Congress leaders at Kahlwan village near Kartarpur this morning. Congress leader Dalbir Singh alleged that a SAD leader attacked him after he tried to stop the latter from forcing people to vote for the SAD-BJP. SAD leader Bhupinder alleged that he was attacked by Dalbir along with his supporters. Later, police officials reached the spot. Polling was also suspended for half an hour. Cong workers damage
SAD counter
Congress workers allegedly damaged a party counter of the SAD-BJP at Phulpur village.SAD worker Jaswinder Singh alleged that when they were issuing voting slips to residents of the village, some Congress workers reached the spot and threatened them to shut the counter. “When I refused to
budge, Congress workers pounced on us and damaged the counter. EVM develops snag, replaced
Voting remained suspended for over 30 minutes at the polling booth No 37 in Gurjaipal Nagar. Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) B K Virdi said EVM developed a technical snag. EVM had already registered about 40 votes before it developed the snag. The machine was later replaced. Administration’s take
The incident occurred when the EVM developed some technical snag as the machine stopped registering votes after 597 entries. “Immediately, polling was suspended by poll officers and technicians had been called in. A new balloting unit was brought in which took time to fit in. During the process, polling agents of both parties were inside the room and there was no chance of any tampering,” said Assistant Returning Officer, Jalandhar North-cum-MC Commissioner Manpreet Chattwal. Voters were a harried lot as they had to wait for long at the booth for their turn to cast a vote. Polling was finally restored at 4pm. |
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Poll sidelights
* Former Congress minister Avtar Henry could not cast his vote, as his vote had been cancelled about six months ago. His case under the Representation of People's Act is pending in the District Courts as it had been alleged that he was a British passport holder. Election officials had sent him in writing a few days ago that he should leave Jalandhar as he was no longer a voter here and as per the Election Commission of India guidelines, he could not stay put here during polls. However, after an understanding with the officials, he stayed back at his place on Mall Road and was not allowed to move around, with cops directed to keep a vigil on him till the conduct of the polls.
*
Residents of Hullewal village, falling in Kapurthala, boycotted the Lok Sabha polls, as they alleged that their demand of not winding up a Government Primary School there under the 1-km scheme had gone unheard. The children of the school had been asked to study at Dainwind village at some distance, to which the villagers have been protesting. As per reports, only eight of the 437 voters in the village exercised their polling right. *
Unruly scenes prevailed in Kapurthala as District Planning Committee Chairman Sarabjit Makkar exchanged arguments with SDM KS Raj at a polling station in Randhir College, which is also the collection centre for the EVMs. Rajbans Rana and Sukhjinder Rana, ex-MLAs from Kapurthala Assembly Segment, had objected to the presence of SAD leader Amarbir Lally. They had alleged that Lally had been intimidating the voters inside the polling booth. As the SDM attempted to turn Lally out, Makkar came in and sided with his party leader. Both Makkar and SDM abused each other. *
In another incident at Dhariwal Bet village in Bholath Assembly segment, which falls in Kapurthala district, an elderly woman Charanjit Kaur could not cast her vote for the Hoshiarpur parliamentary seat, as her name had been cancelled from the voters’ list after having been declared dead. The woman made all attempts to claim that she was very much alive and that her vote number 268 had been erroneously cancelled, but her grievance fell on deaf ears. She said she contacted BLO Harpreet Kaur, presiding officer Dharampal and micro-observer Maninder Singh, but in vain. DC Kapurthala DS Mangat said since the BLO did not see her at her place on a number of visits, she figured in the list of suspects. *n If it was the administration that used technology to keep a close watch on the conduct of the Lok Sabha polls, even the political parties were not far behind. The political parties used laptops at the counters set up outside the polling stations to assist the voters in checking their votes for the details. SAD supporters were seen using laptops at counters in Model Town. Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer Varun Roojam used webcasting system, Whatsapp messages from volunteers and SMS updates on cellphone to take updates. *n Sadhus and sadhvis of the Dera Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan turned up in large numbers at booth No. 168 at Doaba Arya School in Nurmahal to cast their votes. The sansthan, which falls in Divya Gram village, had the polling booth about 5 km from the dera. The followers came in vehicles, which took rounds to ferry them to the polling stations. — Deepkamal Kaur |
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Lyallpur Khalsa College students excel
Students of Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, have excelled in the Semester I examinations of Masters in Tourism Management conducted by Guru Nanak Dev University. In a press statement released on Wednesday, Principal GS Samra stated that four students of the college bagged positions in the top 10 ranks in the university examinations. Navjot Kaur (481 marks), Ankita Sharma (449), Bhavjinder Singh (429) and Lovepreet Kaur (421) bagged 1st, 5th, 9th and 10th positions, respectively. President of the College Governing Council Sardarni Balbir Kaur congratulated the students and wished them success in life. Rashpal Singh Sandhu, Head, PG Department of Commerce and Prof Jetinder Pal Singh were among the others present. Voter awareness campaign
As per the directions of the Election Commission, the programme, ‘Aahvaan - Vote - My Right - My Duty’, initiated by the students of Mehr Chand Polytechnic College reached its final stage on Wednesday. Youth of the college assembled to form a human chain showing the message ‘30-04-2014: I WILL VOTE’. Principal Jagroop Singh, in his speech, said the time had arrived to give a practical form to the motive for which these series of events were initiated. He said the aim of the students was not only to motivate voters of the state, but also to inspire people from other parts of the country where elections were held on Wednesday. In the leadership of Dimple Sharma, a student, the youth of the college took a pledge to exercise their franchise themselves, besides inspiring people around them for doing the same. The Principal appreciated the efforts of Usha Kiran, Rajeev Sharma, Prabhu Dayal, Sudhanshu Nagpal and Pratap Chand for organising the event. Students given warm
send-off
Faculty members and students of the Innocent Hearts Group of Institutions, Loharan, gave a warm send-off to final year students of MCA, MBA, BBA, BCA, BCom (P) and BHMCT. The farewell party was held at Hotel Regent Park, Jalandhar. Solo and group dance, choreography and bhangra performances were held. Students were also awarded scholarships and prizes for excelling in academics and cultural and sports activities. Raghav, Sonia, Yasir and Jaspreet were given titles of Mr Farewell, Miss Farewell and Mr Talented, Miss Talented, respectively, from postgraduate classes whereas Jaspreet Singh, Pallak Khinda, Shiv and Anshul were selected as Mr Farewell, Miss Farewell and Mr Talented and Miss Talented, respectively, from undergraduate classes. Dr Anup Bowry, secretary, Bowry Memorial Educational and Medical Trust, wished success to the outgoing students. -—TNS |
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One killed in accident
Phagwara, April 30 The injured was admitted to the local Civil Hospital.The police has registered a case under Sections 304/279/137/138/427 of the IPC against the vehicle driver and sent the body to the hospital for autopsy.
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Jalandhar Tribune invites feedback from its readers on issues of public concern relating to Jalandhar, Phagwara, Kapurthala and the nearby areas. Readers can email their views to
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and span model polling booths where voters would get modern arrangements and better voting facilities, most of the model booths in the district failed to impress them.
Tension prevailed after a former Mayor of Jalandhar and a leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Suresh Sehgal today allegedly thrashed a Congress worker, Subhash Sharma, at a polling booth in Rasta
Mohalla.
