Chandigarh, September 22: National Secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Harish Chaudhary has congratulated Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh for outstanding performance of the party in the Punjab Zila Parishad and Block Samiti elections. The Congress is on its way to win these elections with a huge margin.

In Block Samitis in Gurdaspur, the Congress has won all seats, while the SAD failed to open the account. However, the counting is still underway in various districts, but the party is on the way of getting a thumping majority in the elections. Till now the result has been declared on 1003 Block Samiti seats, the Congress has won on more than 850 seats, whereas the SAD even failed to cross the three-figure mark. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also was unable to reach the double-figure mark.

Polling for the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Block Samitis. A total of 17,268 polling booths were set up, 35 observers appointed and around 50,000 police personnel deployed for the polls in Punjab. There are a total of 1,27,87,395 registered voters in Punjab, comprising 60,99,053 women and 97 third-gender voters.

Earlier, political analysts were expecting that the polls would witness a triangular contest between the ruling Congress, AAP and SAD-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine, but the result came out entirely in favour of the Congress. However, Akali Dal accused the ruling state government of booth capturing. Earlier in the day, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, while speaking to media during his visit to Golden Temple accused the Congress of resorting to violence during the elections.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 22, 2018 04:37 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).