Rain dampens Punjab's poll dance

Chandigarh: Campaigning in most parts of Punjab for the Feb 13 state assembly elections ended on a damp note on Sunday amid continuous rain.

All major political rallies on the last day of campaigning were either cancelled or had few listeners due to continuous rain in the state.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani could not land at Patiala for a rally there. Instead, he went to Fazilka in Bathinda district, 250 km from here, to address a rally.

The incessant rain, however, did not discourage Chief Minister Amarinder Singh as he addressed a series of rallies in the border district of Ferozepur.

Elections to 115 Assembly seats out of 117 will be held along with the by-election for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.

Polling in Valtoha constituency has been postponed to Feb 24 following the death of a CPI (Communist Party of India) candidate. It has been postponed in Beas to March 11 following violence that led to the death of an Akali worker last week.

The main contest in the state is between the ruling Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance.

There was virtually no campaigning on Saturday also as the day saw two political rallies of Congress president Sonia Gandhi being called off due to bad weather.

However, thousands of people turned up in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar to listen to former prime minister and senior BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu is involved in a direct contest with state Finance Minister Surinder Singla for the Amritsar seat.

Sidhu had vacated the seat in December after the Punjab and Haryana High Court convicted him in a road rage case. He was convicted of causing the death of a man in Patiala town in December 1988.

Punjab's Director General of Police R.S. Gill Sunday said that 64,000 police and paramilitary personnel would provide security cover on the polling day.

Of these, 50,000 personnel are from the Punjab police and 14,000 from the central paramilitary forces.

The state police are on alert after being rapped by the Election Commission for not providing enough security in Beas constituency where polling had to be postponed.

Out of a total 10,262 polling stations in the state, 1,258 and 3,065 have been identified as hyper sensitive and sensitive respectively, Gill said.

The police chief has asked the police personnel to ensure free, fair and peaceful polling.