Punjab: 8 pc polling recorded till 10 am in zila parishad, panchayat samiti elections

Chandigarh: A voter turnout of eight per cent was witnessed till 10 am in the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections in Punjab on Sunday, officials said.

The polling began at 8 am amid tight security arrangements and is slated to continue till 4 pm. The counting of votes will take place on December 17.

Elections are being held to elect members of 347 zones of 22 zila parishads and 2,838 zones of 153 panchayat samitis. Over 9,000 candidates are in the fray.

A total of 1.36 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballot.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann appealed to voters through X to come out in large numbers to cast their ballot.

Several leaders and ministers, including Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains, Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian, MLAs Kuleep Singh Dhaliwal, Sandeep Jakhar and former minister Surjit Singh Rakhra, cast their votes early.

Many voters, particularly the elderly and women, reached several polling stations in the morning to exercise their franchise.

Officials said that 18,224 polling stations have been set up, covering all rural areas of the districts. There are 860 hyper-sensitive and 3,405 sensitive polling locations, they said.

Around 44,000 police personnel have been deployed under the supervision of gazetted rank officers to ensure free, fair and peaceful elections in the state.

The State Election Commission, Punjab, has appointed election observers and police observers and asserted that it is fully committed to conducting these general elections fairly and transparently.

Candidates of all major political parties -- the Aam Aadmi Party, Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP -- are contesting the zila parishad and panchayat samiti polls on party symbols.

During poll campaigning, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party sought votes based on the works undertaken by the Bhagwant Mann government.

In the run-up to the polls, the opposition parties targeted the Mann government, accusing it of using the government machinery to prevent their candidates from filing nomination papers and getting those rejected.