Chandigarh: With just a day to go for counting of votes polled for the Lok Sabha election, the focus in the northwestern state of Punjab is on prominent faces such as the BJP's Preneet Kaur, SAD's Harsimrat Kaur Badal, former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.
The stakes were also high for other heavyweights like the BJP's Ravneet Singh Bittu and Congress leader and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.
Another contest that will be watched closely is the Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha seat where radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, lodged in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act (NSA), is in the fray as an Independent candidate.
Counting of votes for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab and the one in Chandigarh will take place on Tuesday across 117 centres set up at 24 locations for the purpose, officials said on Monday.
They said foolproof security arrangements have been put in place and the counting exercise will begin at 8 am.
Punjab recorded a voter turnout of 62.80 per cent in the polling that took place on Saturday, recording a dip of around three percentage points compared to the 2019 turnout.
Bathinda witnessed the highest turnout at 69.36 per cent while Amritsar recorded the lowest at 56.06, as per the Election Commission data.
Among the prominent faces, BJP nominee and four-time MP Preneet Kaur is seeking re-election from the Patiala parliamentary constituency. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a three-time MP, and the BJP's Parampal Kaur Sidhu, a former IAS officer, are trying their luck from Bathinda.
Congress Channi and BJP nominee Sushil Rinku were in the fray from the Jalandhar reserved constituency.
Punjab Congress chief Warring contested against Bittu from Ludhiana. Randhawa was in the fray from Gurdaspur.
Former diplomat and BJP nominee Taranjit Singh Sandhu contested from Amritsar against sitting MP and Congress candidate Gurjeet Singh Aujla.
I.N.D.I.A. bloc allies Congress and AAP contested the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab separately while the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) fought on their own for the first time since 1996. The Sukhbir Badal-led SAD walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2020 over the now-repealed three farm laws.
Among its 13 candidates, AAP had fielded five cabinet ministers Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar), Laljit Singh Bhullar (Khadoor Sahib), Gurmeet Singh Khuddian (Bathinda), Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer (Sangrur) and Balbir Singh (Patiala).
Congress candidate Sukhpal Khaira contested from Sangrur while AAP's Karamjit Singh Anmol and the BJP's Hans Raj Hans were in the fray from the Faridkot seat.
SAD (Amritsar) chief Simranjit Singh Mann contested from Sangrur and Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, the son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, fought from the Faridkot reserved constituency.
In Chandigarh, where voter turnout was 67.98 per cent, BJP candidate Sanjay Tandon was pitted against Congress nominee and former Union minister Manish Tewari.
A total of 328 candidates, including 26 women, were in the fray in Punjab. Nineteen candidates, including two women, contested the elections for the Chandigarh seat.
In Punjab, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had also fielded its candidates.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress bagged eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The SAD and the BJP, then fighting as allies, won two seats each. The Aam Aadmi Party had won just the Sangrur seat.
Following the Sangrur and Jalandhar bypolls in 2022 and 2023 respectively, the Congress is left with seven seats while the SAD and the BJP have two each and AAP and SAD (Amritsar) one each.
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