Over 2.07 crore voters in Punjab are eligible to exercise their franchise in the election in which 278 candidates, including 24 women, are in the fray
Pi courtesy/Twitter/ANI
Chandigarh: Polling began on Sunday morning in all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab and the lone Chandigarh constituency in the seventh and final phase of general elections, with prominent faces including SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Puri in the fray. Polling began at 7 am and is scheduled to go on till 6 pm, officials said.
Voting begins for 59 parliamentary constituencies in the 7th phase of #LokSabhaElections2019 across Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, MP, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Chandigarh. pic.twitter.com/azmqo02dYx
— ANI (@ANI) May 19, 2019
ADVERTISEMENT
Punjab: Visuals from polling booth no.25, 26, 27 at DAV Senior Secondary School, Hathi Gate in Amritsar. The 7th phase of #LokSabhaElections2019 will begin at 7 AM today. pic.twitter.com/s0hbcEWDSO
— ANI (@ANI) May 19, 2019
Over 2.07 crore voters in Punjab are eligible to exercise their franchise in the election in which 278 candidates, including 24 women, are in the fray. Besides Sukhbir Badal, his wife and Union minister Harsimrat Badal is seeking re-election from Bathinda for the third time. Union minister and BJP candidate Puri is contesting from Amritsar seat. Actor-turned-politician Sunny Deol is making his electoral debut from Gurdaspur constituency against Congress candidate Sunil Jakhar. AAP's Bhagwant Mann is trying his luck from Sangrur seat.
#Punjab: Cricketer Harbhajan Singh waits in queue to cast his vote at a polling booth in Jalandhar's Garhi village. pic.twitter.com/Fo2triU623
— ANI (@ANI) May 19, 2019
Among Congress' heavyweights, former Union minister Manish Tewari is contesting from Anandpur Sahib while former Union minister and wife of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Preneet Kaur, is contesting Patiala seat. On most of the 13 seats, the contest appears to be a direct fight between the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance. In 2014, the AAP and the SAD had won four seats each, the Congress three and the BJP two. Out of over 2.07 crore eligible voters in Punjab, 98,29,916 are female electors and 560 belong to the third gender.
Punjab: Visuals from polling station no.52 at Government Senior Secondary School Girls in Dera Baba Nanak of Gurdaspur. Voting for the 7th and last phase of #LokSabhaElections2019 will begin at 7 AM today. pic.twitter.com/lq1LrMYbo4
— ANI (@ANI) May 19, 2019
Punjab: Preparations are underway at polling station no.118 in Badal, Bathinda. The 7th and last phase of #LokSabhaElections2019 will begin at 7 AM today. pic.twitter.com/vURkHCVF1A
— ANI (@ANI) May 19, 2019
More than one lakh security personnel including paramilitary force have been deployed in the state for holding free and fair polling, officials said. Over 3.94 lakh voters in the 18-19 age group would exercise their franchise for the first time in Punjab. A total of 23,213 polling stations have been set up and 249, 719 and 509 booths have been categorised as critical, sensitive and hyper sensitive, respectively. From the Chandigarh seat, BJP candidate Kirron Kher is locked in an electoral battle against former railway minister and Congress candidate Pawan Kumar Bansal. More than 6.46 lakh voters in Chandigarh have the right to exercise their franchise in the election in which 36 candidates, nine of them women, are in the fray. Of total 6,46,063 voters in Chandigarh, 3,04,423 are women electors and 21 are in the third gender category. There are 17,598 eligible first-time voters in the 18-19 age group.
Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates
Edited by mid-day online desk with inputs from Agencies
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
