Stage set for Zila Parishad, Panchayat Samiti elections in Punjab on December 14

All arrangements are in place for polling to zila parishad and panchayat in Punjab, scheduled to be held on Sunday, officials said.

Polling will commence at 8 am and will continue till 4 pm through the use of ballot papers, they said. Vote counting will take place on December 17, they said.

A total of 1.36 crore voters are eligible for polling, officials said, adding that over 19,000 booths covering all rural areas of the districts, have been established in the districts.

Elections will be held to elect members of 347 zones of Zila Parishads and 2,838 zones of 153 Panchayat Samitis.

Officials said there are 860 hyper sensitive polling locations while 3,400 sensitive polling locations.

They further said around 44,000 police personnel will be deployed for the poll duty.

The State Election Commission (SEC), Punjab, has said that it has appointed election observers and police observers for the polls, adding that it is fully committed to conducting these general elections in a fair and transparent manner.

All the major political parties Aam Aadmi Party, Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP are contesting the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls on party symbols.

AAP sought votes for works undertaken by the Bhagwant Mann government.

During poll campaigning, AAP leaders highlighted 300 units of electricity with 90 per cent of households getting zero bills, opening of mohalla clinics and giving government jobs.

In the run-up to the polls, the opposition parties targeted the Mann government, accusing it of using the government machinery in preventing their candidates from filing nomination papers and rejecting them also.

Amid allegations of the misuse of police by the AAP government, a purported audio clip surfaced on social media with Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal claiming that Patiala SSP Varun Sharma and other officers were allegedly conspiring to prevent opposition candidates from filing nomination for the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls at the behest of the ruling AAP.

Though police called the purported conference call audio clip as fake AI-generated, this matter reached the Punjab and Haryana High Court after Akali leader Daljit Singh Cheema and Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa filed petitions.

Cheema sought judicial safeguards to ensure free and fair elections in the state while Bajwa demanded extension in the last date for filing nominations, which was December 4, claiming that opposition candidates faced “intimidation and systematic obstruction” in filing nomination papers.

Later, IPS officer Varun Sharma proceeded on leave and the Sangrur SSP was given the additional charge of Patiala SSP.

The high court even asked SEC to issue directions to all the police personnel deployed in poll duty for elections, to conduct themselves in a non-partisan manner without indulging in any kind of activity deleterious to the concept of free and fair elections.

Following the high court verdict, SEC wrote to the Punjab DGP, asking him for free and fair polls.

Recent events where an audio recording of a senior police official in Patiala district went viral, have caused a considerable erosion in the perception of the police fairness and neutrality in the election process.

“Although no doubt it is a matter now under investigation, such activities give occasion to the general public to distrust the neutrality and unbiasedness of the official machinery, and it takes great effort to restore the public confidence in the election machinery,” SEC wrote.