In some rural areas, BJP sets up no counters outside polling booths

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, June 1

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) contested the Lok Sabha elections alone for the first time in the state. The party is heavily banking on the support from the SC community in rural segments. However, the community is not entirely polarised as it is also voting for other parties. During a journey through different rural assembly segments of the constituency, it has been learnt that there are several villages in rural Amritsar, particularly in Khadoor Sahib constituency, where no counters of the BJP were set up outside polling booths by party workers.

Despite conducting poll rallies in various rural assembly constituencies, the BJP failed to find some supporters, who take their “jhola” (bag), containing electoral lists, printed slips, stationary and other goods required at the counters set up by party workers. Though the BJP candidates in Amritsar and Khadoor Sahib faced several demonstrations by farmers during the poll campaign, there is no report that any farmer union opposed BJP workers to set up their counters. Even in some villages where Left-leaning farmer unions have a strong hold, BJP workers established counters outside polling booths.

Jaswinder Singh Billa, a BJP activist at Chetanpura, said, “No one stopped us from setting up party counters outside polling booths. I took the responsibility of setting up polling booths in eight villages around me. In seven villages, I found our workers but in one village workers didn’t take the initiative. Mainly, members of the SC community are supporting the BJP in villages. Most of them got fed up with AAP for removing their names from the Atta-Dal Scheme and not giving Rs 1,000 to women as they promised in the run-up to the Assembly polls.” It has been learnt that the BJP gained some cadre in the Attari constituency as booths were established in several villages. At Jahangir village, the presence of BJP workers was noticeable.