Voting today, over 3k candidates in fray

With AAP, Congress, BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal vying to outdo each other, the municipal elections in Punjab are set to witness a multi-cornered contest, the polling for which will take place on Saturday.

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CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government on Friday has notified December 21 (Saturday) as a public holiday under the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 on account of civic body polls.

Polling will be held for five municipal corporations of Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Phagwara, 44 municipal councils and nagar panchayats from 7 am till 4 pm. Counting will be held on the same day, said officials.

Electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be used for the voting, they said.

As many as 3,336 candidates are in the fray for the civic polls, said officials, adding that there will be 3,809 polling booths.

The municipal corporations of Amritsar and Jalandhar have 85 wards each, while Ludhiana, Patiala and Phagwara have 95, 60 and 50 wards, respectively. There are 598 wards of municipal councils and nagar panchayats.

The civic polls will be a litmus test for the ruling AAP, which would want to continue its winning momentum after winning three of the four assembly bypolls in November. The stakes will also be high for the Congress. It had a majority in Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala municipal corporations.

The Congress had accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of "misusing" the state machinery to forcefully stop the opposition candidates from filing the nomination papers for the polls.

It had also targeted AAP over the alleged deteriorating law and order issue. Prestige will also be at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is fighting the MC polls solo.

The Shiromani Akali Dal is also trying its luck in these polls.

The party did not contest the November bypolls to four assembly segments after its leader Sukhbir Singh Badal was declared 'tankhaiya' (guilty of religious misconduct) by the Akal Takht for "mistakes" made by the SAD and its government in Punjab from 2007 to 2017.