Polling in one of the most bitterly fought elections to the Punjab Assembly will be held on Tuesday amidst fear that rains may mar the voter turnout.
Around 1.66 crore voters have the right to vote on Tuesday to decide on the political fortunes of 1,038 candidates, including Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his arch rival Parkash Singh Badal.
In a keenly-fought electoral battle on issues of development, terrorism and fundamentalism, Congress is fighting 115 seats while main opposition Shiromani Akali Dal led by Badal is battling it out in 92 seats.
SAD's electoral ally Bharatiya Janata Party has candidates in 23 seats.
Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party seeks their fortunes in 115 seats, Communist Party of India in 24, CPI-M in 14, Nationalist Congress Party in 15 and others, including independents in 640.
Politicians fear that the prevailing inclement weather, which has marred the last two days of campaigning, could play a spoilsport in voter turnout, which had seen a fall of 2.59 per cent in the 2002 polls (65.14 per cent) and as compared with the 1997 poll when the turn out was 68.73 per cent.
The Congress had won 62 seats in 2002 when it annexed power from the SAD-BJP combine, which could manage to win only 44 seats.
The other winners in the elections five year back were CPI (2) and Independents (9) in the 117-member state Assembly.
Polling will be held in 115 out of the 117 seats of the Punjab Assembly and the high-profile Amritsar Lok Sabha seat from where BJP candidate and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu is fighting the bypoll.
Voting in two Assembly constituencies of Valtoha in Tarn Taran district and Beas in adjoining Amritsar district has been deferred to February 24 and March 11 respectively.
While poll-related violence was the reason for deferment in Beas, the death of a CPI nominee Kulwinder Singh in a road accident forced the Election Commission to postpone the polls in Valhota.
Around 200 companies of Central forces, besides personnel of the Punjab police have been deployed in the state to ensure free and fair poll at 16,509 poll stations, including 4,797 and 1,034 identified as sensitive and hypersensitive respectively.
Though there are 10 candidates in fray for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, the main contest is between Sidhu, who resigned recently following his conviction in an 1988 road rage case and state Finance Minister Surinder Singla of Congress.
The key contestants in fray include state Congress president Shamsher Singh Dullo (Khanna SC), deputy Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal (Lehra), SAD (Amritsar) president Simranjit Singh Mann (Dhanoula) and former SGPC president Jagir Kaur (Bholath).
Tamil Nadu governor's Surjit Singh Barnala's son Gaganjit, who has recently been booked in an rape case, was another prominent figure fighting the polls. He has been renominated from Dhuri in Sangrur district.
The other main contestants include Madan Mohan Mittal (Nangal) and Manoranjan Kalia (Jalandhar Central), both of BJP, an alliance partner of SAD, Avtar Singh Karimpuri (BSP, Mahilpur), Hardev Singh Arshi (CPI, Budhlada) and noted industrialist Kewal Dhillon (Congress, Barnala).
The number of women candidates has come down to 54 as compared with 71 in the previous poll.
There are just four constituencies -- Amritsar Central, Jalandhar Cantt, Chamkaur Sahib and Kharar where the number of contesting women is more than one.
The maximum number of 18 candidates each will be in fray in two constituencies of Ludhiana rural and Patiala town.
The lowest number of three candidates will be in the fray in Dasuya Assembly constituency in Hoshiarpur district.
