HP polls: SEC directs removal of government hoardings

With election schedule announced for Himachal Pradesh, state's Chief Electoral Officer today asked the government to remove hoardings and also record the timing of their removal.
CEO Pushpender Rajput also directed the Returning officers and Deputy Commissioners to strictly implement the Model Code of Conduct.
He said that about 50,000 employees, including 38,000 on poll duty, would be deployed to manage 7,521 polling booths.
As many as 75 companies of paramilitary forces would be deployed for ensuring free and fair polls and webcasting of 2,000 booths would done, he said.
Fifty-one booths have been declared hypersensitive and CCTV cameras would be installed at these booths. Forty-three auxiliary booths have also been set up, he said.

Rajput said that there were 49,05,677 voters in the state as on September 15, (including 24,98,174 male and 24,07,503 female). The percentage of first-time voters in the age group of 18-19 years was 1,49.

The revision was done again from September 16 to September 30 to register the left out voters and final list would be published by October 15.
The commission has received 78,960 fresh applications which would be disposed over the next two days.
A budget of Rs 50 crore has been released for conducting the polls and committees have been set up to look into the complaints and poll expenditure incurred by the candidate.

Wheelchairs would be made available at every polling booth to facilitate persons with disabilities and aged voters.
The Ka polling booth in tribal Kinnaur constituency has the minimum six voters while booth No. 72 in Solan has the highest number of 166 voters. The highest polling booth of Hikkim located at an altitude of 1,000 feet has 46 voters.
CCTV cameras have been installed at 93 entry points to keep vigil on activities of anti-social elements and meetings have been held with police and excise and taxation department officials of neighbouring states to ensure that no unlawful activity takes place.

Rajput said that there were 45,33,713 voters in 2012 assembly polls and 47,44,215 voters in 2014 Lok Sabha polls and polling percentage was 73.51 and 64.45 respectively.
The filing of nominations would be done from October 16 to 23, scrutiny would take place on October 24, the last date for withdrawal of nomination is October 26 and polling would be held on November 9.
The counting of votes would take place on December 18 and model code of conduct world remain in force till the completion of election process on December 20.