All arrangements have been completed for the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections in Punjab, scheduled to be held on Sunday, officials said.
Polling will begin at 8 am and continue till 4 pm. Ballot papers will be used for voting. Counting of votes will take place on December 17, officials added.
Officials said that around 1.36 crore voters are eligible to cast their votes. More than 19,000 polling booths have been set up across all rural areas of the state.
Polls will be held to choose members for 347 zila parishad zones and 2,838 zones of 153 panchayat samitis.
According to officials, 860 polling locations have been marked as hyper-sensitive, while around 3,400 have been identified as sensitive. Nearly 44,000 police personnel will be deployed across the state to maintain law and order during the polling process, they said.
The Punjab State Election Commission said it has appointed election and police observers for the elections. It added that it is fully committed to ensuring that the elections are conducted in a fair and transparent manner.
All major political parties, Aam Aadmi Party, Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP, are contesting the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections on party symbols.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party sought votes on the basis of the work done by the Bhagwant Mann government. During the campaign, AAP leaders highlighted the provision of 300 units of free electricity, with claims that nearly 90 per cent of households received zero electricity bills. They also pointed to the opening of mohalla clinics and the recruitment of youth to government jobs.
In the run-up to the polls, opposition parties accused the Mann government of misusing government machinery to prevent their candidates from filing nomination papers and of rejecting nominations unfairly.
Amid allegations of police misuse by the AAP government, a purported audio clip surfaced on social media. In the clip, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal allegedly claimed that Patiala Senior Superintendent of Police Varun Sharma and other officers were conspiring to stop opposition candidates from filing nominations at the behest of the ruling party.
Police later termed the audio clip fake and claimed it was generated using artificial intelligence. However, the matter reached the Punjab and Haryana High Court after Akali leader Daljit Singh Cheema and Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa filed separate petitions.
Cheema sought judicial safeguards to ensure free and fair elections, while Bajwa sought an extension of the December 4 deadline for filing nominations. He claimed opposition candidates faced intimidation and systematic obstruction.
Following the controversy, IPS officer Varun Sharma went on leave, and the Sangrur SSP was given additional charge of the Patiala SSP.
The High Court also directed the Punjab State Election Commission to issue instructions to all police personnel on poll duty to act in a non-partisan manner and refrain from any activity that could undermine free and fair elections. After the court’s directions, the State Election Commission wrote to the Punjab Director General of Police, seeking assurances for free and fair polls.
In its letter, the commission said that the circulation of an audio recording involving a senior police official in Patiala had damaged public perception of police neutrality in the election process.
“Although no doubt it is a matter now under investigation, such activities give occasion to the general public to distrust the neutrality and unbiasedness of the official machinery, and it takes great effort to restore the public confidence in the election machinery,” the commission said.
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