AAP-Cong faceoff at Dera Baba Nanak

Barring a faceoff between AAP and Congress workers at Dera Pathana village, peaceful voting was held for the Dera Baba Nanak Assembly bypoll today

Elaborate security arrangements had been made by the police in all 241 polling stations. Nearly 2,500 security personnel drawn from the PAP and the BSF had been deputed at the polling stations, including those identified as “sensitive”.

The day started on an unsavoury note with Congress and AAP workers being engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at Dera Pathana village.

Congress workers claimed that some AAP loyalists had forcibly entered a polling station. MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was quick to reach the site from his native village of Dharowali. Holding an impromptu press conference, he alleged that the police were hobnobbing with anti-social elements and allowing the entry of unauthorised people inside the polling station.

AAP candidate Gurdeep Randhawa, too, arrived accompanied by his supporters. Tempers ran high even as the situation threatened to get out of hand. Batala SSP Suhail Qasim Mir, on receiving reports that all was not well at Dera Pathana village, dispatched a team of policemen. About a hundred cops formed a wall between the two warring factions.

Later, MP Randhawa and Gurdeep Randhawa left the polling station, following which the crowd dispersed.

The police took a youth into custody. Congress workers claimed he was an outsider and belonged to Tarn Taran.

Gurdeep Randhawa alleged that the MP had never won from Dera Pathana village whenever he contested Assembly elections. “He wanted to scare away voters by creating an unsavoury situation. We did not allow him to be successful in his plan,” he said.

Sukhjinder Randhawa claimed that the police had provided security to Harjit Kaur, the mother of gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, and Gagan Bhagwanpuria, his cousin. “Just see how Harjit Kaur and Gagan are creating terror. They are moving around as if they are VIPs,” he said.

There were allegations that AAP had pushed scores of outsiders into the area to “capture polling stations with the help of the police”. An officer said the accusations were unfounded because all outsiders had left Dera Baba Nanak on the evening of November 18 on the orders of the administration.