86,520 voters to seal fate of candidates in Dehra Assembly byelection today

Raghav Guleria

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Dharamsala, July 9

The Election Commission has completed all preparations for the Assembly byelection in Dehra. Polling parties have reached their booths and taken charge. Returning Officer-cum-SDM, Dehra, Shilpi Bekta said the administration had made all efforts to ensure free, fair and peaceful voting in the constituency. Voting would be held from 7 am to 6 pm tomorrow while the counting of votes would be done on July 13.

The SDM said that 86,520 voters (42,633 women, 43,887 men and 1,826 service) would cast their votes to elect the MLA. “The number of voters in 18 to 19 years age group, who will be voting for the first time, is 2,047, including 936 girls. The number of Person with Disability (PwD) voters is 555 and the number of elderly voters above 85 years of age is 1,487. Among the elderly voters, 38 are above 100 years of age,” she added.

She said that of 2,042 elderly and PwD voters in Dehra, 889 had opted for home voting. Ten teams ran a home voting campaign from June 29 to July 6 and created a new record by getting more than 96 per cent of the voters to cast their votes.

In the fray

Congress : Kamlesh Thakur

BJP: Hoshiyar Singh

Independent: Sulekha Devi, Arun Ankesh Syal, Sanjay Sharma

Five candidates are in the fray for the Dehra Assembly byelection, including Kamlesh Thakur of the Congress and Hoshiyar Singh of the BJP. A total of 100 polling stations (98 general and two critical polling stations) have been set up for voting. The Dehra-1 and Dhaliara-2 polling stations have been categorised as critical.

The Returning Officer said that webcasting had also proposed at 86 places and 100 polling stations to monitor the voting process in the constituency. She added that three model polling stations had been set up, namely 16-Bhatehad, 41-Khairian and 50-Khabli. One polling station in Dehra, 84-Behan-2 would be run by youth while women employees would handle two polling stations, 54-Jakhuni and 67-Dehra-3.

The 63-Dhawala polling station has the highest number of 1,345 voters. DSP, Dehra, Anil Kumar said that proper security arrangements had been made for the byelection.