HP election: No poll duty for those reemployed post-retirement

The employees on extension or those who have been reemployed after retirement wouldn't be deployed on poll duty during the upcoming Himachal Pradesh elections, Chief Election Commissioner Achal Kumar Joti today said.
Reviewing the preparation for the state polls, dates for which are yet to be announced, he said political parties had raised this issue with the EC and the commission has taken note of it.
He said that if such employees get deployed they would be removed for the poll duty.
The CEC said directions have been issued to provide ramp, electricity, toilet facilities, water and waiting room at all polling booths.

He said general and police observers would be appointed to ensure free, fair and transparent polling and they would report directly to the Election Commission.
Chief State Electoral Officer Pushpender Rajput said work on special revision of photo electoral rolls for all 68 constituencies had been completed and voters list published.

He said 1,25,556 new voters had been registered after special revision of the electoral rolls, which included 40,567 voters in the age group of 18-19 years and 84,989 above 19 years of age.
He said 47,523 names had been deleted from the voters list over death, change of place or double registration and the net increase in number of voters was78,033 or 1.62 per cent.

Now there were 49,05,677 registered voters in the state out of which 24,98,174 were male and 24,07,503 female.
The CEC said the commission has decided to purchase 16- lakh VVPAT machines and 23 lakh EVMs and a sum of Rs 2,000 crore had been released for it.