Bajwa questions Punjab poll date, says farmers' attention to be on paddy sowing

Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa on Wednesday questioned the timing of the conduct of Lok Sabha elections in Punjab, saying farmers' attention will be on paddy sowing at that time.

Polling for Punjab's 13 Lok Sabha seats will be held on June 1.

Bajwa said elections in Punjab should have been put in the same phase as Haryana or Rajasthan.

Paddy sowing in Punjab starts in the third week of May and it goes on till the second week of July, he told reporters.

''On June 1, when polling will take place, the attention of all farmers and farm labourers will be on crop sowing,'' he said.

''It means that it is a well-thought-out conspiracy against Punjab. If there is four to five per cent lower voting by farmers, it will give an advantage to a particular party,'' Bajwa alleged.

Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan will be held in two phases -- on April 19 and April 26. In Haryana, voting will be held in a single phase on May 25. Bajwa, the leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly, also slammed the AAP over Balkaur Singh charge that the state government is harassing him over the birth of his second son.

Singh is the father of slain singer Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu alias Sidhu Moosewala.

''At a time when the entire Punjab is welcoming the arrival of a new member in the Sidhu family, the AAP government's officials started asking troublesome questions about the legality of the birth, which is extremely condemnable. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is doing this at the direction of the BJP-led Union government,'' Bajwa alleged.

The AAP has rejected Singh's accusation, saying it was the Centre that had sought a report on the IVF treatment of his wife.

Singh and his wife Charan Kaur welcomed a baby boy on March 17, nearly two years after Moosewala was shot dead in Punjab's Mansa district.

The couple had opted for the In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) method.