Polling commences for three Assembly seats in Punjab

The stakes are high for SAD in the by-polls with its President Sukhbir contesting from Jalalabad seat in Ferozepur district. He had to resign from the post of Deputy Chief Minister last month as he failed to enter the state assembly within the stipulated six months time after his nomination to the post.

A total of 21 candidates are contesting the by-polls with the main contest between ruling SAD and opposition Congress on all the three seats. The SAD has fielded its candidates on all the seats but it is litmus test for the SAD-BJP alliance with the Akalis hoping that sulking BJP leaders will bring around their workers to back the SAD candidates.

As many as 1500 paramilitary personnel have been deployed by the Election Commission in the three Assembly constituencies for the smooth conduct of the by-polls.

While Banur has 92 hyper-sensitive booths, Jalalabad and Kahnuwan have 161 and 36 such booths.

The by-polls for these constituencies were necessitated after Kahnuwan MLA Partap Singh Bajwa (Cong) and Jalalabad MLA Sher Singh Ghubaiya  (SAD) were elected to the Lok Sabha, while Banur representative and cooperation minister Kanwaljit Singh was killed in a road mishap.

The main contest in Jalalabad is between Sukhbir and Congress candidate Hans Raj Joshan. In Banur, Kanwaljit's son Jasjit Singh Bunny is facing Deepinder Singh Dhillon.
At Kahnuwan, Partap Singh Bajwa's brother Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa is locked in a battle with Akali stalwart Sewa Singh Sekhwan.