Repoll at 53 booths today

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 20

The State Election Commission (SEC) today ordered repoll at 53 polling booths for the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections, even as the SAD alleged that 164 booths were captured yesterday by supporters of the ruling Congress.

Repoll will be held tomorrow from 8 am to 4 pm at 36 booths in Muktsar district, eight in Amritsar, two each in Patiala, Bathinda and Ludhiana and one each in Moga, Fazilka and Faridkot.

The SEC has not yet initiated action against officers on duty in the booths that were captured. “We should realise that they (officers) were terrorised and could not do anything,” an SEC spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, a day after an FIR was registered against SAD chief Sukhbir Badal, the party demanded that a case be filed against the Muktsar SSP as the “maximum” incidents of booth-capturing happened there. Akali leaders Daljit Singh Cheema and Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal said the SEC had admitted to 36 incidents of booth-capturing in Muktsar, 11 from the Lambi segment alone.

“The SSP is the brother of an OSD to the CM. Since the police were used to capture booths, he should be booked for muzzling the voice of democracy,” they said, adding that a complaint against the SSP was filed before the SEC today.

“An FIR has been registered against me for attacking a person at Killianwali, but the video shows that I did not hit him at all. We ventured out only because the police were aiding the ruling party in booth-capturing. But I am not scared. I will not apply for anticipatory bail. I will fight oppression,” Sukhbir told The Tribune.