Himachal sees poll percentage of approximately 75.6: Official

Shimla, Nov 13 (IANS) The approximate poll percentage in Himachal Pradesh stood at 75.6 per cent, Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg said here on Sunday.

In 2017 assembly elections, the poll percentage was 75.57.

He said the poll percentage through EVMs was 74.6 per cent. Besides, one per cent postal ballots was received, taking the overall turnout to 75.6 per cent till now and nearly two per cent postal ballots are yet to be received.

The highest polling percentage of 85.25 per cent was reported from the Doon assembly constituency and the lowest polling percentage of 62.53 per cent in the Shimla constituency.

The state Election Department had laid focus on the constituencies with low voter turnout in the assembly polls of 2017.

The department launched its SVEEP and voter awareness activities under its unique programme UTSAV (Universal Transparent Elections through Systematic Awareness of Voters) and specially focused on these 11 assembly constituencies, an official statement said.

A comparative analysis of 11 constituencies -- Dharampur, Jaisinghpur, Shimla, Baijnath, Bhoranj, Solan, Kasumpati, Sarkaghat, Jaswan Pragpur, Hamirpur and Badsar -- revealed that the voter turnout eventually improved in nine of them by up to seven per cent.

The percentage point increase in the Dharampur constituency was 6.93 per cent i.e. from 63.6 per cent in 2017 to 70.54 per cent 2022.

Similarly, in Jaisinghpur, the percentage increased from 63.79 in 2017 to 65.31 per cent, in Bhoranj from 65.04 in 2017 to 68.55 per cent in present assembly elections.

In Solan, from 66.45 to 66.84 per cent, in Barsar from 69.06 to 71.17 per cent, in Hamirpur from 68.52 to 71.28 per cent, in Jaswan-Pragpur from 68.41 to 73.67 per cent, in Sarkaghat from 67.23 to 68.06 per cent and in Kasumpati from 66.86 to 68.24 per cent.

However, in Shimla (Urban) and Baijnath, the percentage dipped slightly from 63.9 in 2017 to 62.53 per cent and from 64.92 in 2017 to 63.46 per cent in 2022, respectively.

The total males in the electorate were 27,88,925, the female voters were 27,36,306 and the third gender voters were 38.

Out of these, the total percentage of male population who exercised their right to franchise was 72.4, while of females 76.8 per cent and the third gender 68.4 per cent.

The Chief Electoral Officer said the strong rooms have been sealed with a three-tier security system.

He said due to effective enforcement seizures of nearly Rs 60 crore were made since announcement of the poll on October 14 till day of poll, as compared to about Rs 10 crore in 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections.