Maneesh Garg thanked people of Himachal for participating in huge numbers in festival of democracy

He attributed the high and peaceful polling to the people of Himachal Pradesh, adding that the efforts of the Election Department and Election Commission of India could not have borne the desired results without active participation of the people. He also thanked the              Election Commission of India (ECI) for their continuous guidance during the entire process and the Chief Election Officer (CEC) Rajiv Kumar for personally visiting the residence of late Shyam Saran Negi at Kalpa and meeting his family members and paying his last respects to him, which greatly inspired the voters of Himachal Pradesh.

CEO also thanked all categories of voters including the first-time, elderly, women and PwD voters for showing interest in voting and contributing to the democratic process. He said, besides the above polling at the polling stations, more than 38000 eighty plus, PwD and essential service voters have cast their vote through postal ballot. Postal ballots have been issued to more than 1.26 lakh service voters and other polling staff.

He said the polling started at 8 AM across the state and as per the reports received at State HQ, the approximate poll percentage in the state was 66 percent. The highest polling percentage of 77 percent was reported from Shillai AC and the lowest polling percentage of 50.25 per cent was in Baijnath AC, as reported till 5 PM. The final figures will be known after return of all parties and final scrutiny of the documents, it may vary from the above reported approximate figures.

He said that the polling process was peaceful in the State and proper arrangements were made for the same. Even in the snowbound areas, people came out in large numbers with full zeal and enthusiasm. There were around 130 polling booths in tribal areas of Lahaul-Spiti, Chamba and few in Kinnaur Assembly constituency which were affected by snow.

Overall 7884 polling stations were set up in the state for the total electorate of about 55.25 lakh, excluding the service electors. 412 candidates were in the fray out of which 24 were women.

CEO said that for real time monitoring of the entire polling process, 3960 polling stations were covered through live webcasting with continuous monitoring at state, district and AC level control rooms. A total of 157 women polling stations, 37 PwD polling stations and 136 model polling stations were also set up. Besides, arrangements of crèche for small children were also made in many districts like Hamirpur, Una, Chamba and Kinnaur.

To keep supervision over the entire polling process, the ECI had appointed 29 General observers, 23 Expenditure Observers, and 3 Police Observers, besides, one Special General Observer, one Special Police Observer and one Special Accessibility Observers were also appointed to ensure a fair and transparent election process.

CEO said due to effective enforcement by all enforcement agencies, seizures of nearly 60 crore were made since announcement of the poll on 14th October as compared to about 10 crore in 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections. 1013 complaints were received over C-vigil out of which corrective action was taken in respect of 861 complaints.