Anandpur Sahib (Punjab) [India], June 1 (ANI): Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate for the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituency, Malvinder Singh Kang has called on people to brace themselves and exercise their voting rights despite the sweltering heat and soaring temperature.
Singh arrived at a polling booth in Mohali early this morning to cast his vote in the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Urging voters to cast their vote, the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha candidate said, "Your vote decides your future. We are repeatedly requesting people that no matter how hot it is, to strengthen democracy and save democracy, more and more people should come out and cast their vote."
The BJP turncoat was inducted into the Aam Aadmi Party in July 2021. He quit the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2020 in a disagreement over the farm laws with the ruling party.
In this election, Kang is pitted against Prem Singh Chandumajra of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Subhash Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Vijay Inder Singla of the Congress.
Recently, in an election rally in Punjab's Hoshiarpur Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an appeal to the voters to vote in favour of BJP candidate Subhash Sharma.
During a roadshow supporting Sharma, BJP National President JP Nadda emphasized the importance of electing young and dynamic leaders like Dr Sharma to Parliament. He highlighted the need for such leaders to address and resolve the issues faced by the electorate.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress party's Manish Tewari had bagged 4.27 lakh votes, defeating SAD's Chandumajra and Aam Aadmi party's Narinder Singh Shergill in the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituency.
Voting for all seats in Punjab began this morning with all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab - Gurudaspur, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Anandpur Sahib, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot, Firozpur, Bathinda, Sangrur, and Patiala.
The seventh phase marks a grand finish to the world's largest polling marathon that began on the 19th of last month and has already covered six phases and 486 Lok Sabha seats.
Voting started in the last 57 parliamentary constituencies at 7 am today across seven states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
According to the Election Commission of India, over 10.06 crore electors including approximately 5.24 crore male, 4.82 crore female and 3574 third gender electors are expected to exercise their franchise.
The seven States in which polling is underway include Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. Polling for the remaining 42 Assembly constituencies of the Odisha State Legislative Assembly will also take place simultaneously.
Polling for the earlier six phases of Lok Sabha elections was held on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20 and May 25. Assembly polls have also been held in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Odisha is seeing simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and assembly in the last four phases. (ANI)
