All-Cong team in Sarabha society sparks protest

Our Correspondent

Mandi Ahmedgarh, June 13

A day after election of all Congress-supported candidates to the Agricultural Cooperative Society, Sarabha, residents owing allegiance to Opposition parties protested against the Congress leadership of the village on Wednesday.

Refuting charges of irregularities in the election process, secretary of the society Bhupinder Singh claimed the election was conducted in a transparent manner under the supervision of polling officer Ankush Sharma. He claimed that the SAD had fielded only one candidate, Parmajit Singh, whose nomination papers were rejected on technical grounds. Ranjit Singh, Jagvir Singh, Samsher Singh, Ram Aasra, Chamkaur Singh, Balwinder Singh, Nachhatar Singh, Bara Singh, Bhupinder Singh, Kulwinder Kaur and Gurjit Kaur were declared elected unopposed, said Bhupinder.

Addressing a rally at Sarabha village, speakers, led by former SAD MLA Manpreet Singh Ayali, alleged that the election was conducted in an undemocratic way and aspirants from Opposition parties, including the Shiromani Akali Dal, were not allowed to contest the election.

Demanding intervention of the higher authorities, Ayali threatened to launch a movement to get election process for various autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies streamlined. “This cannot be called an election as aspirants from parties other than the Congress were not allowed to submit their nomination papers even. What has happened here is the murder of democracy and we will not allow this to happen in our Assembly segment,” said Ayali, saying that the situation at other villages in Ludhiana district was not better even.

Baldev Singh, secretary of the Shaheed Kartar Sarabha Sports Club, said the unfortunate sequence of events was against the precedence of the native village of Martyr Kartar Singh Sarabha. “We don’t blame candidates winning the election for the process, but the polling staff should have allowed enough time to aspirants from other parties to submit their nomination papers,” he said.