In Faridkot village,103% polling as ‘dead men’ come out to vote
Extra effort: Among voters,one in coma,three absent NRIs,family living in Rajasthan.
In the records of Faridkot’s Gajansinghwala village,Jagdev Singh,listed as voter number 2 in ward number 3,is among those who died long time back. So are two others,Karnail Singh of ward number 1 and Surjit Singh of ward number 5. But they are among the voters who came out to cast their votes on May 19 for Wara Daraka zila parishad zone. So did Teja Singh of ward number 5,pronounced almost-dead by the doctors.
The phenomenon of dead coming alive to vote came to light Tuesday during counting in Gajansinghwala. Three NRI voters – Gurdev Singh,Sukhwinder Singh and Rajwinder Singh – did not come down to the village on the polling day. Neither did the family of Gursewak Singh —- they migrated to Kesarsinghwala in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar—- which has four voters. Gursewak denies any of the four voters from his family coming to Punjab to cast votes. With these 11 voters listed in both Akali Dal and Congress lists as dead/absent,Gajansinghwala still recorded 103 per cent polling with 103 of the 106 villagers in its voters’ list casting their ballot.
The winner from the Wara Daraka zila parishad is SAD nominee Kultar Brar,younger brother of SAD MLA Mantar Singh Brar,who incidentally is chief parliamentary secretary in the Department of Rural Development and Panchayats. Faridkot DC,Ravi Bhagat,when contacted,said they have not received any complaint on the “103 per cent” polling so far. “We are trying to get it verified,” he said.
Congress candidate Amritlal alleged that the ruling party workers put their stamp on ballot papers without keeping the number of actual voters in mind. “It was all so blatant that they did not even try to match the numbers. Despite being in power and being the brother of a chief parliamentary secretary,my opponent feared he would lose,” he said.
Congress in-charge of Faridkot,former MLA Kushaldeep Dhillon,said such bogus votes were cast in almost all villages of the zone but Gajansinghwala exposed the “bungling”. “They did everything,from engineering false withdrawal of nominations,rejection on frivolous grounds to casting votes of the dead. Ballot papers were kept in ghee tins,which can be opened by unscrewing two bolts. Its time these elections are declared a farce and the ruling party simply nominate its own people as members of zila parishads and block samitis,” he said.
Some more interesting tales like that of Gajanwala emerged on the counting day. In Sanour Assembly segment of Patiala district,a Congress candidate was called back for recounting for being granted the winner certificate for block samiti. He refused to surrender the certificate. “He was told that his election has been challenged and a recounting will be done. As such,they rejected nominations of our candidates and intimidated them. I asked my candidate not to return the winner’s certificate,” Sanour MLA Laal Singh said.
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