Chandigarh, Sept 18: Elections in 22 zila parishads and 150 panchayat samitis of Punjab will be held on Wednesday. A total of 354 zila parishad seats and 2,900 panchayat seats will be up for grabs. The voting time has been fixed by the State Election Commission as 8 am to 4 pm. Since most public schools and colleges have been earmarked as voting centres, a holiday has been declared.

For the smooth conduct of elections, a total of 50,000 personnel of Punjab police have been deputed to prevent untoward incident. Meanwhile, 86,340 employees of the state government, including officials of the SEC, have been assigned on election duty.

The SEC has earmarked 17,268 polling booths. Notably, the total number of voters eligible to exercise their right to franchise amounts to 1,27,87,395. Of these, 60,99,053 are female voters and 97 from the third gender.

The results will be declared on Saturday,  as the SEC has scheduled the counting of votes on September 22. While the Congress have expressed confidence on winning a "clean sweep", the Opposition - Akali Dal-BJP combine and Aam Aadmi Party - claim that the voters will back them if polls are conducted a in a "free and fair environment".

Kin of a few state ministers, including Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhbinder Sarkaria, and some legislators, including Fatehjang Bajwa, Balvinder Singh, will try their luck in the rural local body polls to be contested tomorrow.

Tript Bajwa, while speaking to reporters on Monday, said the Congress will win the polls with a massive mandate as the people of Punjab "have benefited from debt-waiver schemes and good governance of Capt Amarinder Singh".

Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, however, contradicted him saying that most of the promise issued by the Congress - including smart phones for youths and job for every household - are yet to be fulfilled. "The only way they can win the elections is by murdering democracy." he said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 18, 2018 11:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).