The Election Commission has now decided to conduct polling in Punjab on February 20. Voting for the assembly elections in Punjab was earlier to be held on February 14, but the state government and various political parties had requested to extend the date of elections. Significantly, all the 117 seats of Punjab were to be voted in a single phase on February 14, but now the date of voting has been extended to February 20.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had written a letter to the Election Commission suggesting that the February 14 assembly elections should be postponed by at least six days in view of Guru Ravidas Jayanti. Ravidas Jayanti is on 16 February, two days after the date of polling. The Punjab CM wrote in the letter that representatives of the Scheduled Caste community, which comprises 32 per cent of Punjab’s population, have told him that a large number of people from the community visit Varanasi on February 10 to 16, due to Ravidas Jayanti. In such a situation many people will not be able to cast their vote for the assembly elections, which is a constitutional right.
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The BJP and its ally Captain Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress had also written to the Election Commission urging them to go ahead with the February 14 polling in Punjab.
Punjab BJP general secretary Subhash Sharma, in a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner on Sunday, had said, “The state has a sizeable number of followers of Guru Ravidas ji, including the scheduled caste community, which is about 32 percent of the population here. On this holy occasion, lakhs of people will go to Banaras in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate it. Therefore, it will not be possible for them to participate in the voting process.”
AAP’s Punjab unit chief Bhagwant Mann had also made a similar plea to the Election Commission.
