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The hot seats include Amritsar (East) from where Congress state unit chief Navjot Sidhu is in the race to retain it; Patiala (Urban), the ‘royal’ bastion of Congress rebel Capt Amarinder Singh, whose fledgling PLC is contesting the polls in alliance with the BJP and SAD (Sanyukt); and Dhuri from where AAP’s chief ministerial face Bhagwant Mann is trying his luck for the first time.The other hot seat to look out for is Chief Minister Charanjit Channi’s Chamkaur Sahib, a reserved seat that he has won three consecutive times. It is currently in the news for illegal sand mining.Channi, the chief ministerial face who was elevated after Capt Amarinder Singh’s resignation on September 18 last year, is the first Scheduled Caste Chief Minister of a state that is home to 32 per cent Scheduled Caste population, the highest in the country.He is contesting from Bhadaur in Barnala district, a second seat, apart from Chamkaur Sahib.In the 2017 Assembly elections, the Congress had won an absolute majority by winning 77 seats in the 117-member Punjab assembly and ousted the SAD-BJP government after 10 years.The AAP had emerged as the second-largest party, winning 20 seats. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won 15 seats, while the BJP, which had a coalition government with the Akali Dal in Punjab from 2007 to 2017, secured three seats.
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Polling across 117 assembly seats in Punjab begins
