Brisk to heavy voting was witnessed for the four lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh with voting percentage recorded at around 66 per cent. The final figures are still being tabulated and could be slightly higher.
Chief electoral officer Narinder Chauhan put the figure at 66 per cent by 6 pm – end of polling. However, he added that final voting figures were yet to come in and the percentage could rise.
The fate of 38 candidates in the fray, which include Anurag Thakur, sitting BJP MP and son of former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Pratibha Singh sitting Congress MP and wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and former Union Minister Shanta Kumar stands locked up in the electronic voting machines. Polling started early in the day as there were many queued up at polling stations by 7 am when polling opened for the day.
Shyam Saran Negi (97) and his wife Hira Mani (92), who were among the first voters to cast their vote on October 25, 1951 in independent India’s first general election, were among the early birds to reach their Kalpa polling booth at Kinnaur district at 6.55 am. The election authorities and district administration honoured him with a scarf and cap after he voted.
Negi has a record of sort for having voted in all elections held in the country since independence. Though India’s first election was held in February 1952 but in the high altitude Kinnaur the polling was held in October 1951 before the winter set in.
Other early voters included Chief Minister Vibhadra Singh, who voted at Rampur, Union Minister Anand Sharma who voted at Shimla, former Union Minister Shanta Kumar who voted at Palampur, former Chief Minister PK Dhumal who voted at Samirpur village in Hamirpur and several other political leaders.
local interests which usually dominate Assembly elections have often resulted in high turnouts like in the December 2012 assembly polls when the turnout was 73.51% but this parliamentary poll has broken the precedent.
Whereas the voter turnout in the 2004 lok Sabha election was 59.71% and it was marginally lower in 2009 when 58.43% of polling was recorded, a poll of about 70 percent has not been recorded for many parliamentary elections in Himachal.
The election department had deployed 25 battalion of paramilitary forces, 7500 home guard volunteers and 10,000 policemen for providing
security at 7382 polling booths set to conduct the election for the 4.8 million voters registered in the State.
logistics of conducting the polls did involve setting out poll parties to set up booths in places like Kashapath in Rampur sub-division of Shimla district that involved reaching the last 24 kilometers on foot. The Hikkim polling station in Spiti valley, located at an altitude of 15,000 feet is at the highest place anywhere in the country.
Despite start up political party AAP and BSP having put up candidates on all four seat of Hamirpur, Shimla Mandi and Kangra, the main contest is however, between traditional rivals BJP and Congress.