Clashes, complaints of ‘booth capturing’ mar Ludhiana MC poll

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana/Chandigarh, February 24

Amid reports of clashes, firing incidents and complaints of “booth capturing”, polling for 95 wards of state’s biggest Municipal Corporation, Ludhiana was held on Saturday.

The overall poll percetage in Ludhiana was was 59.14.

Two persons were reportedly injured in a “clash” between Akali and Congress workers outside DAV Public School, BRS Nagar, in ward no. 75. It is learnt that firing took place during the ‘clash’ at around 3.55 pm, minutes before the end of polling. 

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Voters started queuing up before 8 am, when the voting officially started. 

A total of 494 candidates are contesting for the 95 municipal wards. Results will be announced on February 27.

The main fight is between the ruling Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) alliance and the Aam Aadmi Party-Lok Insaf Party alliance.

There are over 10.5 lakh voters in Ludhiana. As many as 1,153 polling stations have been set up.

Civic issues like water supply, lack of cleanliness, pollution, bad roads and infrastructure and poor sewerage are the main issues for common people in the election.

Tight security arrangements were in place on Saturday for the smooth conduct of the polling process.

The Congress, which runs the government in Punjab since March 2017, had won the municipal elections in the municipal corporations of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala in December.

The Congress party had also emerged victorious in 20 out of 29 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats.—With IANS inputs