Punjab will see a high-stakes Assembly election for the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on February 20.
Voting will be held in 117 Assembly seats, with 1,304 candidates, including 93 women and two transgenders, in the fray. Among them, as many as 315 have criminal antecedents.
The ruling Congress, which won 77 seats in 2017, faces challenges from the AAP, the SAD-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance, the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress-Shiromani Akali Dal (Sankyukt) combine, and the Samyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM), an amalgamation of 22 farmer outfits that participated in protests against the Centre’s controversial farm laws.
Across the State, there are as many as 2,14,99,804 electorates- 1,12,98,081 men, 1,02,00,996 women and 727 transgenders. Polling stations, numbering 24,689, and 51 auxiliary polling stations have been established at 14,684 locations. Of this, 2,013 have been identified as critical, while 2,952 are vulnerable pockets.
Seizures
According to Chief Electoral Officer S. Karuna Raju, police parties have been conducting a thorough search to check the flow of liquor, narcotics and money to ensure free and fair elections. “Since the Model Code of Conduct came into force, various enforcement teams have seized valuables worth ₹500.70 crore till February 18, 2022. The Punjab Excise surveillance teams have seized 58.18 lakh litres of liquor worth ₹35.43 crore. Similarly, the enforcement wings have also recovered psychotropic substances amounting to ₹368.60 crore, besides confiscating unaccounted cash of ₹32.52 crore,” he said.
In this polls, the Congress, which is facing anti-incumbency, has bet its fortune on the ‘Dalit’ politics, while the SAD has been attempting to woo its traditional vote bank by focusing on ‘‘Panthic’‘ (Sikh) issues and evoking party’s regional identity. The AAP is selling its ‘Delhi model of governance’ and seeking ‘once chance’ from the voters to form the next government. To make inroads in Punjab, which shares an international border with Pakistan, the BJP has been raking the “nationalism-nationalist” narrative. To garner the support of the Sikh community, it has been presenting itself as the party which, in the past seven years in the Centre, has worked towards the interests of Sikhs. The SSM is seeking votes as a novel party against the ‘traditional’ parties.
