A voter turnout of nearly 65.32% was recorded in Punjab on February 20.
The polling ended at 6 p.m. The voting started at 8 am. A total of 700 companies of the central armed police force besides the state police personnel have been deployed for peaceful polling.
Malerkotla recorded a maximum voter turnout of 57.07 while Mohali recorded the lowest at 42%.
Fazilka recorded a turnout of 56.97%, Mansa 56.94%, Muktsar 56.12%, Bathinda 55.48%, Ferozepur 55.08%, Amritsar 44.29%, Ludhiana 45.11%, Jalandhar 45.53% and Patiala 54.30%.
At a polling booth in Amritsar, Punjab Congress chief Navjot Sidhu and SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia came face to face and exchanged brief pleasantries. Both leaders are contesting against each other from Amritsar East.
AAP’s chief ministerial face Bhagwant Mann met his mother at his native place.
Amritsar-based famous conjoined twins Sohan Singh and Mohan Singh, fondly known as Sohna-Mohna, cast their separate votes.
Voting is being held for all the 117 Assembly seats in a single phase with 1,304 candidates, including 93 women and two transgenders, in the fray. Among those contesting as many as 315 are with criminal antecedents.
Across the State, there are as many as 2,14,99,804 electorates including 1,12,98,081 men, 1,02,00,996 women and 727 transgenders. In all, 24,689 polling stations and 51 auxiliary polling stations have been established at 14,684 polling station locations of which 2,013 have been identified as critical, while 2,952 are vulnerable pockets.
In the high-stakes battle for Punjab, the ruling Congress is trying hard to defend its turf, the Aam Aadmi Party has emerged as the main challenger, the Shiromani Akali Dal is seeking to make a political comeback with a new alliance partner — the Bahujan Samaj Party — while the Bharatiya Janata Party has tied up with former Chief Minister Captain (Retd.) Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress.
(With inputs from PTI)
