Polling for 1,279 panchayats remain peaceful in Gurdaspur
Contrary to popular belief that violence would rock the polling process, elections to panchayats remained peaceful much to the relief of the district administration.
Police and civil administration officials had gone all out to ensure that no untoward incident takes place even as 2,000 cops kept guard at various places. Polling took place across 1,090 booths spread across 882 villages. There are a total of 1,279 panchayats out of which unanimity was reached in 397. Based on historical parameters, 77 villages were declared hyper-sensitive and 431 as sensitive.
At stake are the reputations of the Leader of Opposition (LoP) and two-time MP Partap Singh Bajwa, sitting Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and ex-Cabinet ministers Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Aruna Choudhury. Elections to panchayats in Dera Baba Nanak Vidhan Sabha seat were viewed with particular interest as the assembly by-election to this seat is scheduled to be held on November 13.
The Dera Baba Nanak Vidhan Sabha seat has 252 panchayats.
Congressmen and SAD leaders have steadfastly been claiming that the administration was “unjustly” rejecting the nomination papers of candidates being supported by them. This allegation, however, was vehemently denied by Deputy Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta. “Everything has been done in a transparent manner,” he said.
There were rumours that at the directives of AAP leaders, duplicate ballot papers were put in circulation. This was again denied by the DC. “No such thing has happened,” he maintained.
The BJP was virtually out of contention even before the first vote had been cast. The party does not have a base in rural areas of this border district following which the BJP showed little or no interest in the polls. The fight for supremacy is between the Congress, SAD and AAP.
Bajwa claimed that AAP candidates were being covertly supported by officials of the state government. He had even met the DC a few days ago along with senior Congress leaders to inform the officer that the papers of Congress backed candidates were being “rejected on totally frivolous and flimsy grounds”.
