AAP candidate booked after clash with Congress workers at Dera Baba Nanak
Security personnel had to resort to mild lathicharge after Congress and Aam Aadmi Party candidates and their supporters entered into a scuffle at a polling station in Dera Baba Nanak assembly segment in Gurdaspur on Saturday.
Security personnel had to resort to mild lathicharge after Congress and Aam Aadmi Party candidates and their supporters entered into a scuffle at a polling station in Dera Baba Nanak assembly segment in Gurdaspur on Saturday.
Police have booked AAP candidate Gurpartap Singh Khushalpur after preliminary investigation.
Sources said Congress candidate Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa reached booth number 120 at Government Senior Secondary School in Kalanaur village and lodged a complaint with the election observer after receiving information that Khushalpur was insisting an elderly woman to vote for him.
Randhawa also complained to deputy commissioner (DC) Pardeep Aggarwal about Khushalpur’s gunmen allegedly entering the room where voting was taking place.
Later, the two groups entered into a verbal spat, which turned violent. During the scuffle, Khushalpur’s brother Kanwaljit Singh’s and two other AAP workers’ turbans were reportedly tossed.
Seeing the situation getting out of control, the security personnel resorted to mild lathicharge to disperse workers of both the parties.
Gurdaspur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Jasdeep Singh said after preliminary inquiry, a case under Section 171-F (using undue influence during election), 153 (promoting enmity between different groups on basis of religion and caste) and 186 (voluntary disrupting a public servant from discharging his duty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against Khushalpur at the Kalanaur police station.
While Khushalpur could not be contacted, Randhawa alleged he received various reports about the AAP candidate asking Congress workers to vote for the AAP at various polling stations across the constituency.
(In an earlier version of this report, it was wrongly reported that the turban of the AAP candidate was tossed. It was actually his brother.)