Two arrested for livestreaming voting on Facebook Live

Rahul Kalia uploaded his video of casting vote at booth number 150 in the Kharar segment of the Sri Anandpur Sahib Constituency on Facebook Live

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Mohali: The police in Mohali have arrested two local leaders for uploading videos of casting their votes on the platform. The police arrested Rahul Kalia, a Congress leader, and Bhanu Partap, a Bharatiya Janata Party councillor of Ward No. 3 in Kurali municipal council in Mohali after they shot a video on Facebook Live while voting in the seventh and final phase of voting on Sunday.

Rahul Kalia uploaded his video of casting vote at booth number 150 in the Kharar segment of the Sri Anandpur Sahib Constituency on Facebook Live. Immediate action was taken against him by the police and first asked both of them to first remove the voting video from Facebook, and then booked them under the appropriate sections of the Representation of the People (RPA) Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

After the incident was reported, the Election Commission's presiding officer Joginder Singh was removed from his duty.

On May 19, amid reports of skirmishes and snags in electronic voting machines (EVMs), nearly 57 per cent voting was recorded till 4 p.m. for Punjab's 13 Lok Sabha seats in the final phase of the general elections on Sunday. Voting began at 7 a.m. in Patiala, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Jalandhar (SC), Hoshiarpur (SC), Anandpur Sahib, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib (SC), Faridkot (SC), Ferozepur, Bathinda, Sangrur and Gurdaspur. Polling will end at 6 p.m. In the state capital Chandigarh, 52 per cent voting was recorded for the lone seat.

Polling was halted for half an hour at Eelwal village in Punjab's Sangrur constituency when two factions of Congress workers clashed with each other outside a polling station. Three persons were reportedly injured. An Akali Dal worker was injured in firing at Talwandi Sabo and the party blamed the Congress for the violence. Congress activist Khushbaz Jattana was booked for the firing.

Congress candidates Gurjit Aujla, Manish Tewari and Kewal Dhillion, Union minister and Akali Dal candidate Harsimrat Kaur Badal, her estranged cousin and state Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, Patiala sitting MP Dharamvira Gandhi and cricketer Harbhajan Singh were among the early voters in the state.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his wife cast their votes in their hometown Patiala, from where the latter is contesting as a Congress candidate for the first time. She has won the seat thrice.

In the 2014 polls, Punjab saw 70.61 percent polling while Chandigarh witnessed 73.71 percent. A straight contest between the Congress and the Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine has become three-cornered with the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) fielding candidates for seven seats.

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