INDIA VOTES 2024: Punjab to see single-phase polling on June 1

Tribune News Service

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Chandigarh, March 16

With the Election Commission announcing seven-phase Lok Sabha poll schedule today, elections on 13 parliamentary seats in the state will be held on June 1. The General Election will commence on April 19 and the votes will be counted on June 4.

As of March 1, the state has 2,12,71,245 voters out of which 1,19,29,959 are men, 1,07,75,543 women and as many as 744 are transgender voters. The state has a total of 24,433 polling stations.

General Election schedule

Date of notification: May 7

Last date of filing nominations: May 14

Scrutiny of papers: May 15

Last date of withdrawal: May 17

Poll date: June 1

Counting: June 4

The state has nine general constituencies, including Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Anandpur Sahib, Ludhiana, Ferozepur, Bathinda, Sangrur and Patiala. The four reserved seats (SC) include Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Fatehgarh Sahib and Faridkot.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, the Congress recorded victory on eight seats, SAD and the BJP won two seats each and AAP one.

So far, only AAP has announced eight candidates—Ministers Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer (Sangrur), Dr Balbir Singh (Patiala), Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar), Laljit Singh Bhullar (Khadoor Sahib) and Gurmeet Singh Khuddian (Bathinda). The three others include Sushil Rinku (Jalandhar), Karamjit Anmol (Faridkot) and Gurpreet Singh GP (Fatehgarh Sahib).

Meanwhile, three prominent Congress leaders— Rinku, GP and Chabbewal—have switched their loyalty towards AAP. There’s a buzz of more leaving shortly incase their “political aspirations were not respected by the party high command”.

So far, SAD and the BJP have neither released list of their candidates nor have they announced an alliance. During the year-long farm stir in 2020-21, the Akali Dal had pulled out of the pact with the BJP. In February, Home Minister Amit Shah had mentioned about the talks between the two parties. However, the issues related to farmers and ‘Bandi Singhs’ have kept the tie-up lingering.

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