Dry Days In Uttar Pradesh, Punjab For Assembly Elections 2022: Alcohol Sale To Remain Banned From February 18-20 In Constituencies Going For Polls On Sunday

Lucknow, February 18: Ahead of the third phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022 and the Punjab Assembly Elections 2022, the sale of liquor will be banned for a 48-hour period. The ban will be lifted once the voting concludes in the respective constituencies. Dry days are observed because of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), which is imposed for free and fair elections. The 48-hour ban on alcohol sale will begin from 5 pm on Friday and will continue till 6 pm on Sunday.

Liquor shops in three-kilometre limits of constituencies going for polls will remain closed. In the third phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, a total of 59 out of 403 assembly constituencies across 16 districts will go to the polls on February 20, along with 117 Vidhan Sabha seats in Punjab. In the first two phases, the polling was held in 113 constituencies in UP on February 7 and 14. Assembly Elections 2022: Dry Day in Poll-Bound Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa on February 13, 14 in View of Vidhan Sabha Elections.

The districts going to the polls in the third phase in UP are - Hathras, Kanshiram Nagar (Kasganj), Etah, Mainpuri, Firozabad, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Etawah, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is contesting from the Karhal Assembly constituency in this phase. BJP MP from Agra and Minister of State in Modi government, SP Singh Baghel and Asim Arun, who is contesting of the saffron party’s ticket, are other key candidates in this phase.

Meanwhile, Punjab will witness a four-cornered contest between the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) alliance and the Shrimoni Akali Dal (SAD) – Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Punjab’s Amritsar East assembly constituency will witness a fierce poll battle between Bikram Singh Majithia and Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, former CM Amarinder Singh, SAD Chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal, AAP CM candidate Bhagwant Singh Mann are among key candidates contesting the Punjab Vidhan Sabha polls.

Meanwhile, polling in Goa and Uttarakhand took place on February 14, along with the second phase of UP assembly elections. The voting for the Manipur assembly will take place in two phases on February 28 and March 5. The counting of votes for assembly elections 2022 for all the five states will take place on March 10.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 18, 2022 01:00 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).