Punjab assembly election 2022: All eyes at ECI for its postponement

The Election Commission of India has to decide whether the forthcoming assembly elections in Punjab can be postponed for a week or so.

The Commission has fixed the date of February 14 for the people to cast their votes in the election, However, all the political parties of the state including the Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi have demanded the elections be deferred for at least six days.

Channi has cited the reason, ie, the birth anniversary of Guru Ravidas Jayanti which is on February 16. In a letter to the Election Commission of India, he has written that a lot of people of Punjab will travel to Banaras from February 10 to February 16 to participate in his birth anniversary. Hence, they will not be able to exercise their rights to vote in the forthcoming election.

"In such a situation, many people from this community would not be able to cast their votes for the state assembly, which is otherwise their constitutional right. They have requested that the voting date may be extended in such a way that they are able to visit Banaras from February 10 to February 16 as also participate in the assembly elections," Channi wrote in a letter to ECI.

Punjab Aam Aadmi Party head Bhagwant Mann has also made a similar suggestion through a tweet. Even Punjab BJP General Secretary Subhash Sharma has said that Punjab has a substantial population of followers of Guru Ravidas ji, including the Scheduled Castes (SC) community which is about 32 per cent of the population of Punjab.

“On this pious occasion, millions of devotees would visit Banaras in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate the gurparb,” Sharma wrote.