Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Monday thanked the Election Commission of India (ECI) for accepting his request and postponing the elections for one week in view of Guru Ravidas Jayanti.
The CM had written a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra on January 13, urging him to postpone the elections in Punjab for six days as a huge number of devotees belonging to the Scheduled Caste community would go to Varanasi to pay obeisance to Guru Ravidas Jayanti from February 10 to 16.
Following this, ECI on Monday announced that conduct the Punjab elections on February 20 2022, whereas, counting will be done on March 10, 2022.
As per the re-schedule issued by the ECI, the issue of the notification will be on January 25, 2022, and the last date of making Nominations would be February 1, 2022, while scrutiny of nominations would be done on February 2, 2022. The date of withdrawal of candidature has been fixed for February 4, 2022.
Channi wrote that it hab been brought to my notice by the representatives of the Scheduled Castes community, which contributes around 32 per cent of the total population of the state, that the birth anniversary of Sri Guru Ravidas falls on February 16 and on this occasion, a large number of SC devotees (about 20 lakh) from the state are likely to visit Banaras in Uttar Pradesh from February 10 to 16.
“In such a situation, many people from this community would not be able to cast their votes for the state assembly, which is otherwise their constitutional right,” CM wrote adding that they have requested that the voting date may be extended in such a way that they are able to visit Banaras from February 10 to February 16 as also participate in the assembly elections.