City to witness contest mainly between aspirants of four recognised parties

Amritsar, May 18

Apart from five candidates of the recognised national and state parties and seven from the registered parties, a total of 18 Independent candidates are in the fray for the Lok Sabha election from the holy city.

Most of these Independents are political greenhorns and are not much known in the public sphere. In all, the contest is mainly between the candidates of four parties including the Congress, SAD, BJP and AAP. Even the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Vishal Sandhu and SAD (Amritsar) candidate Iman Singh Mann are lagging far behind in the poll battle.

A spilt in the vote of the SAD and the BJP as they are fighting it alone this time after end of their alliance would certainly affect their candidates. As the district election office has already allotted symbols to the contesting candidates, the Independent candidates complained that it would take them a few more days to get their publicity material printed after which they would distribute it among voters.

“The candidates of big parties are at an advantage as they are able to use their party election symbol from the very beginning. With printing houses busy due to elections, it is difficult for us to get our publicity material printed on time,” said Prithivi Pal, an Independent candidate, who is contesting elections from the holy city. –