12-15% polling in Punjab, Chandigarh till 10 hrs

Between 12 to 15 per cent of estimated 1.16 crore voters exercised their franchise till 10 am in polling to nine Lok Sabha seats of Punjab and the lone Chandigarh constituency today.     

Electorates reached the polling booth to exercise their franchise, an election office spokesman said here adding that the polling will be held till 1700 hours.

During the first three hours no untoward incident was reported from any of the constituency.     

At Moga at one polling station of booth No 84 polling could not start for 40 minutes due to some defect in Electronic Voting Machine and polling was started after the EVM was replaced, reports here said.     

Similar reports of fault occurred in EVM soon after polling started at about 10 places including Reharwan, Kili Chahlan, Bhinder Khurd, Butterkalan and Dattasanduanwal.     

At two places machines were replaced and at other places machines were repaired.     

At village Rania under Nihalsinghwala assembly segment Congress workers were harassed and tension mounted when Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) workers with the help of some policemen allegedly tried to remove the Congress flags from the houses of Dalits, officials said.Police immediately swung into action and brought the situation under control.     

A Congress worker going in car was allegedly attacked by SAD workers at Akalsar road in Moga district and beaten and the car was damaged.     

Police rushed to the spot but in the meantime assailants managed to escape.     

Police registered a case against Gurjant Singh Mohi and four unknown persons. However no arrest was yet made.     

Punjab's nine seats - Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Jalandhar (reserve), Fatehgarh Sahib (reserve), Hoshiarpur (reserve), Anandpur Sahib, Ludhiana and Faridkot (reserve) - are going to polls along with other states in the fifth and final phase of countrywide election to Lok Sabha seats today.     

An estimated 1.16 crore voters will seals the fate of 139 candidates in Punjab, including ten women and 65 independents.     

The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and its ally BJP and opposition Congress and the BSP have fielded their candidates on all the nine seats. 

Prominent among those whose fate will be sealed included Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu of BJP from Amristar, actor-turned-politican Vinod Khanna of BJP from his traditional bastion Gurdaspur, Lok Sabha deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal of SAD from Fatehgarh Sahib seat, sugar baron Rana Gurjit Singh of Congress from Khadoor Sahib, former Punjab Governor Lt Gen (retd) B K 
N Chhibber of BSP from Amritsar, former Punjab Congress chief Mohinder Singh Kaypee of Congress from Jalandhar (reserve) seat and singer-turned-politician Hans Raj Hans of SAD also from Jalandhar.     

Also in the fray are Punjab Youth Congress chief Ravneet Singh Bittu from Anandpur Sahib, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's political advisor Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema of SAD also from Anandpur Sahib, AICC member Manish Tewari from Jalandhar seat, former bureaucrat Som Parkash of BJP from Hoshiarpur, and sitting Congress MLA O P Soni from Amritsar seat.     

While Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Khadoor Sahib constituencies have been declared hyper-sensitive, Faridkot and Ludhiana seats are declared sensitive by the Election Commission.     

Officials said that as many as 1,099 and 2,548 polling stations have been identified as hyper-sensitive and sensitive respectively.

Out of total 13 Lok Sabha seats of Punjab, four - Bathinda, Patiala, Sangrur and Ferozepur went to polls on May 7.     

Meanwhile, the fate of sitting MP and union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal of Congress, former MP Satya Pal Jain of BJP and Harmohan Dhawan of BSP and 11 other candidates will be sealed by around six lakh voters in Chandigarh constituency.     

Among those who cast their franchise in the early hours included Bansal, Jain, Dr Daljeet Cheema, Ravneet Singh Bittu.