Fate of 14 candidates sealed at Gidderbaha

The fate of all 14 candidates for the Gidderbaha bypoll was sealed in the EVMs today. The Assembly segment witnessed swift voting with all three key candidates — Amrita Warring of the Congress, Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon of AAP, Manpreet Singh Badal of the BJP — looking confident of their victory.

The counting of votes will take place on Saturday.

CAPF deployed

• The polling passed off peacefully as adequate security arrangements had been made across the constituency and the CAPF had been deployed at 61 of the 173 polling stations
• The byelection was necessitated after PCC chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring got elected to the Lok Sabha from Ludhiana recently

A rare display of bonhomie was witnessed between Amrita and Dimpy, as both greeted each other at the historic Gurdwara Guptsar Sahib at Chhateana village. Amrita was already at the gurdwara when Dimpy arrived. As soon as Amrita came out from the sanctum sanctorum, Dimpy greeted her with, “All the best, Biba ji.” In response, Amrita smiled and said, “Sat Sri Akal. Thank you ji.”

Meanwhile, BJP candidate Manpreet Singh Badal continued touring the constituency throughout the day. He visited several party booths near the polling stations to boost the morale of workers. In response to a query, he commented, “Dimpy is riding high on overconfidence, which did hurt him in the last election.”

Both Amrita and Dimpy also visited booths of their respective parties.

Among the three candidates, Dimpy was the only one from the constituency to cast his vote. Amrita is a voter in the Muktsar Assembly constituency, while Manpreet is a voter in the Lambi segment.

Since morning, a large number of voters started arriving at the polling booths. However, an electronic voting machine (EVM) at polling booth number 152 developed a snag, delaying the start of polling by almost an hour.