14 candidates in poll fray, says Ludhiana CEO

A total of 14 candidates will contest the byelection to the Ludhiana West seat of the Punjab Legislative Assembly.

Punjab Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sibin C stated this here today, on the last day for withdrawal of nominations. One Independent candidate, Kamal Pawar, withdrew his nomination.

The CEO said after the scrutiny of nomination papers, 15 nominations were found valid and with the withdrawal of one candidate, 14 candidates now remain in the electoral fray.

It is noteworthy that voting will take place on June 19 from 7 am to 6 pm and the result will be announced after the counting of votes on June 23.

Expenditure observer for the Ludhiana West byelection Indana Ashok Kumar will cross-check shadow registers with registers maintained by 14 contesting candidates, at the Bachat Bhawan, District Administrative Complex, from 10 am to 5 pm on June 9, 13 and 17.

District Election Officer (DEO) Himanshu Jain stated that the expenditure registers of the Aam Aadmi Party candidate Sanjeev Arora, Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu, BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta, SAD candidate Parupkar Singh Ghuman, candidate Jatinder Kumar Sharma of the National Lok Seva Party and Shiromani Akal Dal (Amritsar) candidate Navneet Kumar would be compared from 10 am to 1 pm.

The expenditure registers of Independents Albert Dua, Gurdeep Singh Kahlon, Neetu, Paramjit Singh Bharaj, Pawandeep Singh, Er Baldev Singh Katna, Rajesh Sharma and Renu would be compared from 2 pm to 5 pm.

The DEO added that all contesting candidates must bring their expenditure registers and other records such as cash book, bank vouchers and statements and all account-related records.