70.7% voting in 3 Himachal Assembly byelections

Shimla, July 10

As much as 70.7 per cent voting was recorded in the three byelections in Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh held today.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Maneesh Garg said polling was peaceful in all the three constituencies. Polling, which was sluggish at 15.99 per cent till 11 am, picked up and rose to 48.52 per cent at 1 pm. The poll percentage gathered pace and by 3 pm it was 58.88 per cent.

Garg said that the highest voting of 79.04 per cent was recorded in Nalagarh, followed by 67.7 per cent in Hamirpur while 65.42 per cent voting was recorded in Dehra. He said that the final figures of voting percentage would be released only after the return of all the polling parties and the scrutiny of the documents.

The CEO said apart from the voting at the polling stations in the three segments, 1,523 voters above 85 years and 348 people with disabilities availed of the home voting facility. No untoward incident was reported during the polling.

A total of 13 candidates were in the fray, including two women candidates. Five candidates each contested poll in Dehra and Nalagarh while in Hamirpur three candidates were in the election fray.

Garg said that for real time monitoring of the entire polling process, 315 polling stations were covered through live webcasting, which was being continuously monitored through control rooms set up at the state, district and assembly level. Six polling stations were managed by women, one by people with disabilites (PwD) and three were managed by the youthy. He added that apart from this, nine model and six green polling stations were set up.

After the announcement of polling on June 10 and the implementation of the model code of conduct in Dehra, Nalagarh and Hamirpur, enforcement agencies such as the police, Income Tax, state Tax and Excise and Industry departments ahve made seizures to the tune of about Rs 3.40 crore.

Monitoring of polling stations

For real time monitoring of the voting process, 315 polling stations were covered through live webcasting, which was being continuously monitored through control rooms set up at the state, district and constituency level