55 per cent polling in Khadoor Sahib bypoll

Fifty five per cent of the voters today cast their ballots in the bypoll to Khadoor Sahib assembly seat of Tarn Taran district.
Fifty five per cent votes have been polled till 4.30 pm, official sources said here.
However, there was no report of untoward incident in the bypoll.
Voting today remained slow in the morning as five per cent votes were polled till 9.30 am after commencing at 8 am.
Various polling booths in the constituency wore a deserted look initially when the polling started.
But later in the day it picked up with voters reaching polling stations in large numbers.

There are total 1,87,184 voters and interestingly this time five cross genders were also included in the voter list.

Around 2,100 security personnel were deployed in the polling booths, including 1,500 policemen and six companies of para military forces.
The bypoll is being held as the seat fell vacant after Congress MLA Ramanjit Singh Sikki resigned in protest against sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib last year.
There are seven contestants in the fray but among main political parties, only Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has put up his candidate. The main opposition party Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have not fielded any candidate for the bypoll.

Ravinder Singh Brahampura, son of Akali stalwart, Ranjit Singh Brahampura is contesting on SAD ticket. The six others are Puran Singh of BSP (Ambedkar) and Independents - Sumel Singh Sidhu (AAP rebel), Bhupinder Singh Bittu (Congress rebel), Sukhdev Singh, Harjit Singh and Anantjit Singh Sandhu.
Congress pulled out of the contest on the last date of filing the nomination and had said that the issue on which Sikki had resigned was still unresolved. Sikki had even appealed to voters to boycott the bypoll.
The counting of votes will take place on February 16 and the result will be declared on the same day.