Polling to Shahkot bypoll tomorrow

Press Trust of India  |  Chandigarh 

Polling to the bypoll, for which the three major political parties-Congress, Dal and have went all out, will take place tomorrow.

Ruling party has fielded Hardev while Dal has given ticket to Kohar's son

Aam has nominated for the bypoll.

As many as 1,72,676 voters will decide the fate of 12 candidates who are in the fray.

The has deployed a total of 1,022 personnel of security forces including six companies of the in

"All the necessary arrangements have been made to hold free and fair Shahkot bypoll," an spokesman of the election office said today.

The voting will start at 7 am and will go on till 6 pm. Holiday has been declared for the electors of constituency on May 28.

The counting of votes will take place on May 31.

There are total 236 polling stations in the constituency, out of which, webcasting will be held at 103 stations. The election office has identified 136 places vulnerable.

The Electronic Voting Machines and Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) will be deployed at all the polling stations while 15 per cent additional EVMs and VVPAT have been kept as reserve if some malfunctioning is developed during polling, said.

With the ruling party eyeing to maintain winning momentum on the development agenda, opposition party is striving to retain its pocket borough from where had remained five-time MLA.

The Main opposition party Aam which faced humiliating defeat during Gurdaspur Lok Sabha bypoll and civic polls is desperately looking for the victory.

candidate Laddi came under severe attack with opposition parties accusing him of being involved in

The party had to even face embarrassment when an FIR was lodged by the then Mehatpur SHO against Laddi in illegal mining case, though Congress accused SHO of acting at the behest of and

However, the SHO was replaced by the over complaints of bias and violation of the code of conduct in filing of an FIR against Hardev

With chief taking the charge of the poll campaign for Akali candidate, the opposition party managed to bring three leaders of and one of Congress into its party fold.

AAP leaders C D Singh Kamboj, H S and shifted to while senior Congress and former joined

During campaigning, Akali kept its attack on the ruling Congress on the issues like illegal sand mining, molasses leakage incident, alleged removal of Sikh history from Class 12 and "reneging" on polls promises.

Congress on the other hand charged previous Akali-BJP regime with "ruining" the state and "total lack of development" in the constituency which was held by Akali MLA.

even lashed out at the Akalis for misleading people on farm debt waiver issue and leaving the state in fiscal crisis.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Sun, May 27 2018. 13:55 IST