Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal speaks to the media after casting his vote.
Facing a stiff challenge from the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and daughter-in-law and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal voted in the Badal village this morning. Badal village is part of the Lambi assembly constituency which the chief minister represents.
"We will win easily. Punjab is looking forward to peace and development," the 89-year-old chief minister said after voting.
Mr Badal is locked in a mega prestige battle with Congress's chief ministerial candidate Captain Amarinder Singh, 75, in Lambi. Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party has fielded Jarnail Singh here take on the two big political heavyweights.
Since 1997, Mr Badal has contested and won from Lambi, but in the last election his margin of victory over the Congress candidate was about 25,000 votes, not a big gap for the presumptive chief minister of the winning side.
"We will register a better victory this time. Amarinder Singh will lose his security deposit," Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal, told the media after casting his vote.
Sukhbir Singh Badal is himself locked in another mega battle in Jalalabad with Bhagwant Mann, seen as AAP's leading contender for chief minister if the party wins.
Parkash Singh Badal's Shiromani Akali Dal, in alliance with the BJP, has ruled Punjab for two straight terms - 10 years. Parkash Singh Badal's career is seven decades long and he has been Punjab chief minister five times, the first 47 years ago, when he became the country's youngest chief minister in 1970. He was 43 then.
(With inputs from IANS)