Punjab municipal elections 2021: Voting today, BJP candidates given special security cover
Tight security arrangements are place as nearly 18,000 police personnel have been deployed to conduct free and fair elections, senior officials said.
Polling for 117 urban local bodies, including eight high-stake municipal corporations, will be held in Punjab on Sunday with 9,222 candidates in the fray.
The eight municipal corporations are: Abohar, Bathinda, Batala, Kapurthala, Mohali, Hoshiarpur, Pathankot and Moga.
Tight security arrangements are place as nearly 18,000 police personnel have been deployed to conduct free and fair elections, senior officials said.
The voting will take place from 8 am to 4 pm through electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Special security cover, though temporary, has been provided to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and candidates in some sensitive areas as the party is facing anger of the farmer unions in the wake of protests.
Meanwhile, the chief of ruling Congress is Punjab, Sunil Jakhar, accused the opposition parties of making baseless allegations against the state government and claimed that they have already "conceded the defeat".
“They simply do not have any argument against the Congress Party, which is fighting elections purely on the development plank,” Jakhar said in a statement on Saturday.
He also took a dig at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), saying it is not only a “faceless” party but an “issueless” outfit as well.
Jakhar said the three opposition parties - Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) AAP and the BJP - are competing with each for the second place as the Congress is certain to sweep the elections across the state.
The State Election Commission said on Saturday that it has set up 4,102 polling stations and out of which, 1,708 have been declared as sensitive and 861 as hypersensitive.
The counting of votes will take place on February 17. The State Election Commission has announced February 14 and 17 as dry days.
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