Punjab [India], May 7 : Punjab Congress chief and party's candidate from the Ludhiana parliamentary constituency, Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, distanced himself from a controversy sparked by a religious event, asserting that Congress is a secular party and for him all religions are equal.
He also said that every religion has the right to preach and propagate its teachings.
https://x.com/RajaBrar_INC/status/1787751853179998624
"I want to set the record straight about a religious event where a singer made some remark that has offended our Christian brotherhood. Congress is a secular party and I firmly believe in secular principles. For me all religions are equal. I pay my obeisance in Gurdwara Sahib, Mandir, Masjid, Church and the sacred places of 'pirs' and 'fakirs'," Warring said in a post on X.
"If anyone has said anything, that has offended our Christian brotherhood, I obviously have nothing to do with that as I have no control over what anyone says or does," he added in his post.
"But, I do strongly disagree with any view that seeks to curb the activity of any religion. Every religion has the right to preach and propagate its teachings and I and my party, the Congress, firmly believe in that principle," he further stated in his post.
In Punjab, voting for its 13 seats will take place in a single phase, with the seventh and final phase on June 1 seeing voting in Firozpur, Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nandpur Sahib, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot, Bathinda, Sangrur, and Patiala constituencies.
Meanwhile, the polling is going on for 93 Lok Sabha seats across 12 states and union territories in the third phase of the general election on Tuesday.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
In this phase, more than 1300 candidates, including around 120 women, are in the fray.
A total of 17.24 crore voters are eligible to cast their franchise in this phase at 1.85 lakh polling stations. Prominent leaders to contest in today's poll battle include Union Home Minister Amit Shah, former Madhya Pradesh chief ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Digvijaya Singh, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Samajwadi Party leader Dimple Yadav, and NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, among others.
In the 2019 general election, the BJP won 72 of the 93 seats that go to the polls today. The Lok Sabha elections are being held across seven phases, from April 19 to June 1. The counting is scheduled for June 4.