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Chandigarh: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday directed to suspend Tarn Taran Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ravjot Kaur Grewal for allegedly interfering in the by-election process.
The action comes just ahead of the Tarn Taran assembly bypoll on November 11, when Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal met the Election Commission-appointed observer and submitted a written complaint of abuse of power by the SSP to help the ruling Aam Aadmi Party.
The Election Commission said that Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singlagh Bhullar has been given the additional charge of Tarn Taran SSP.
A delegation of Akali Dal also met the Chief Electoral Officer in Chandigarh and submitted the complaint.
SAD alleged that the AAP government was using the state police to influence the by-election process.
In the memorandum, the SAD claimed that party workers and leaders from Tarn Taran were “forcibly detained” by police officials ahead of the by-election.
He alleged that the official machinery was being misused to target candidate Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa, her family members and SAD supporters.
The Chief Electoral Officer said there are a total of 192,838 voters in the constituency, including 100,933 males, 91,897 females and eight third gender voters.
There are 1,357 service voters, 1,657 voters above 85 years of age, 306 NRI voters and 1,488 disabled voters.
The number of youth voters aged 18 to 19 years is 3,333. He said that 222 polling stations have been set up at 114 polling station locations, of which 60 are urban and 162 are rural.
The Tarn Taran by-election on November 11 was necessitated by the death of AAP MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal, who won the seat with 52,935 votes, defeating Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harmeet Singh Sandhu.
Fifteen candidates are in the fray. These include Sukhwinder Kaur of Shiromani Akali Dal, Harjeet Singh Sandhu of BJP, Harmeet Singh Sandhu of Aam Aadmi Party and Karanbir Singh of Congress.
–IANS