Punjab: Over 6 Injured In 2 Firing Incidents During Panchayat Polls

Chandigarh: At least six persons were hurt in two firing incidents reported during the Panchayat elections held amid tight security arrangements in Punjab on Tuesday. Over 55% turnout was recorded in the polling held to elect about 13,000 panchayats in the state, till the time of filing this report.

For record, there were 1,001 booths as hyper-sensitive – most of these booths being in Tarn Taran, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Patiala and Gurdaspur districts; there were over 1.33 crore voters who were expected to cast their votes for these polls to elect panches and sarpanches for 13,229 villages in Punjab.

There were over 1 lakh candidates for different posts while the votes were cast through ballot papers. Notably, though the panchayat polls are not fought on party symbols, all the parties had aggressively backed their candidates. Notably, 3,798 candidates had already been elected for the post of sarpanch unopposed.

It may also be recalled that the Punjab and Haryana High Court had on Monday dismissed a bunch of petitions filed against the state panchayat polls on several grounds mainly over the issue of ward demarcations and delimitation, and rejection of nomination papers. Subsequently, the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the said polls saying there would be chaos if the courts stayed the elections on the polling day.

Meanwhile, besides several scuffles and skirmishes reported from several parts of the state, four persons were reported hurt in a firing incident in Sohal Sain village in Tarn Taran district; another firing incident was reported from Patiala where two persons were hurt after groups of supporters belonging to rival candidates had a scuffle over an issue of voting.

Elsewhere, four persons were reported injured at a polling booth in Sawal village in Kapurthala after two groups attacked each other with sharp-edged weapons during polling. Meanwhile, the state election commission had cancelled the pooling at Dalla and Pona villages in Ludhiana district due to some technical glitches.