Haryana Assembly Election 2019, Pundri profile: Favourite among Independents, political parties may have hard time in this constiuency

With voting for the 90-member Haryana Assembly scheduled for 21 October in a single-phase election, the Election Commission is getting ready to conduct this most important exercise in a democratic setup.

The term of the current Haryana Assembly will end on 2 November.

Out of the 90 Assembly constituencies in the state, 17 are reserved for Scheduled Castes as per the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 2008.

The state has a total number of 1,81,91,228 people as general electors while 1,07,486 are enrolled as Service Voters taking the final electoral rolls to 1,82,98,714 who will exercise their right to franchise in 19,425 polling stations. The number of polling stations in 2019 has registered a 19.58 percent rise than 2014.

According to the Election Commission, the last date for filing of nomination is 4 October and the date for scrutiny of nominations is 5 October. The last date for the withdrawal of candidature is 7 October.

The date of counting is on 24 October.

Following is a brief description of the Assembly constituency:

Pundri Assembly Constituency

Constituency number: 18

Total electors: 1,80,412

Female electors: 83,293

Male electors: 97,118

Third gender electors: 1

Reserved: No

Delimited: No

Results in the last four elections: Pundri has witnessed victories of independent candidates since the 1996 elections. Independent candidates Tejvi and Dinesh Kaushik won the elections in the years 2000 and 2005. In 2009, Dinesh Kaushik joined the Congress but was defeated by an independent candidate, Sultan. In the next elections in 2014, Dinesh Kaushik contested as an independent candidate again and gained victory over BJP’s Randhir Singh Gollen.

Demographics: Known for its firni — a sweet so popular that nearly 100 quintals of it are sold during the festival of Teej — Pundri is one of the very few places in India that still have a water flour mill. Continuing its tradition of electing independent candidates for Assembly elections, Pundri might observe an independent candidate rise to power again or the emergence of a political party.

October 01, 2019 at 03:59PM