Punjab: Polling begins for 117 Assembly seats
Chandigarh(PTI): Voting for 117 Assembly seats in Punjab began on Sunday morning amid tight security arrangements. Polling started at 8 am and will continue till 6 pm.
A total of 1,304 candidates, including 93 women and two transgenders, are in the fray for the high-stake electoral contest. There are 2,14,99,804 voters, including 1,02,00,996 women.
There are 24,740 polling stations, of which 2,013 have been identified as critical while 2,952 are vulnerable, said Punjab Chief Electoral Officer S Karuna Raju.
Punjab is witnessing a multi-cornered contest among the Congress, AAP, SAD-BSP, BJP-PLC-SAD (Sanyukt) and the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, a political front of various farmer bodies.
The Shiromani Akali Dal is contesting the polls in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
The BJP is fighting the elections in alliance with Amarinder Singh-led Punjab Lok Congress and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa-led SAD (Sanyukt).
The SSM is contesting the polls with Haryana Bharatiya Kisan Union (Chaduni) leader Gurnam Singh Chaduni-led Sanyukt Sangharsh Party.
Prominent faces in the fray include Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Aam Aadmi Party's chief ministerial face Bhagwant Mann, Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, former CMs Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal, and Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal.
Former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma and former Union minister Vijay Sampla are also in the fray.
A total of 700 companies of the central armed police force besides the state police personnel have been deployed.
There are 196 pink polling stations for women while 70 polling stations will be managed by persons with disabilities (PwD).
In the wake of COVID-19, arrangements have been made for masks, gloves and sanitisers at polling stations and also for the disposal of Covid waste material.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
