Voters wooed by relatives!

Voters wooed by relatives!
Rajay Deep
Tribune News Service

Rampura Phul, May 12
During the two-phase polls in Punjab, residents of Haryana and Rajasthan having relatives here remained in high demand. Candidates of almost every party had taken their services to woo their relative voters.
Information gathered by this correspondent revealed that during the past few days hundreds of residents from the part of Malwa, where polls have been held, were also being taken to Faridkot Parliament constituency by supporters and campaign managers.
Besides the four constituencies of Malwa (Bathinda, Ferozepur, Patiala and Sangrur), where the elections were held on May 7, the practice is on in the Faridkot parliamentary constituency, to which the Phul assembly segment was added after delimitation.
Considering the fact that a sizeable population of Punjabis living in Rajasthan and Haryana has the capacity to influence the election results here, almost all contestants, particularly the bigwigs, had made special arrangements for using their services.
Sukant Sharma, a resident of Hanumangarh (Rajasthan), while leaving for his home town after spending two days for convincing his relatives living near bus stand here to cast votes in the favour of the SAD candidate said it was just to oblige a senior SAD leader.
Parkash Chander of Sangria had visited Rampura town yesterday to ask his relatives residing near grain market to vote for the youth candidate of the Congress.
A BJP leader of Bathinda said, “When Rampura Phul was in Bathinda parliamentary constituency, we had supported SAD (B) candidate, Paramjeet Kaur Gulshan. But as she is contesting from Faridkot constituency now, we are moving to Phul assembly area to arrange support for her.”
Reacting over the development, Sukhpal Singh, Prittam Singh and Jadev Kumar, taxi service providers, whose vehicles were hired, said, “We transported various people from Sangrur, Ferozepur and some from Haryana and even Rajasthan to Rampura Phul area. This ‘interesting’ practice of politicians provides us brisk business.”