Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 17: The Punjab assembly elections have been postponed by nearly a week after the Election Commission of India received various pleas from across the political spectrum to postpone the votes due to Guru Ravidass Ji Jayanti celebrations. The new schedule calls for voting to take place on February 20, 2022, rather than February 14, 2022.
The commission said in a press release released on Monday that it had received many representations over the previous several days from the state administration, political parties, and other organisations, drawing its attention to an impending religious event.
The Guru Ravidas Ji Jayanti celebrations, which will take place on February 16, 2022, may result in a significant number of devotees travelling from Punjab to Varanasi starting a week before the date.
As a result, keeping the poll day on February 14th “will prevent a considerable number of electors from voting,” according to the EC.
Political parties had requested that the election be moved to a few days after February 16, 2022, and the election commission had received input on this from the state government and Punjab’s chief electoral officer.
Earlier this week, Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, as well as his adversary, the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wrote to chief election commissioner Sushil Chandra, requesting that the February 14 state assembly polls be postponed by at least six days because many people from the scheduled caste community, which accounts for around 32% of the state’s total population, are expected to visit Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi in view of the upcoming.
According to Punjab’s chief minister, up to 20 lakh individuals in the state would have been deprived of their constitutional right to vote in the state’s assembly elections.
The Congress achieved an absolute majority in the 2017 Assembly elections, securing 77 seats and ousting the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government after ten years in power.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came in second with 20 seats, followed by the Samajwadi Party (SAD), which won 15 seats. Three seats were won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
