By IANS,
Shimla: Himachal Pradesh is all set to vote Sunday to elect a new 68-member assembly, with a close contest in the offing between arch rivals Congress and the ruling BJP.
A record number of 459 candidates, including 27 women, are in the fray, an election official said Saturday.
Officials are expecting heavy polling as the weather is expected to be clear and sunny. The polling starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m.
According to NGO National Election Watch, eight candidates hold doctorate degrees. Besides four doctors, almost a dozen engineers, two ex-bureaucrats, two university teachers and a host of lawyers and MBAs are contesting the elections.
Sixteen candidates have studied till Class 10 and half-a-dozen have an educational qualification less than that, the NGO said.
The Himachal Lok Morcha (HLM), an alliance of Himachal Lokhit Party, formed under the leadership of BJP rebel and four-time former MP Maheshwar Singh, and the Left are contesting 58 seats.
The HLP is contesting on 36 seats, the CPI-M 15 and the CPI seven, making the contest triangular in more than five seats.
The Bahajun Samaj Party, which won one seat in 2007, has fielded 66 candidates, followed by the Trinamool Congress (25), Lok Janshakti Party (17), Swabhiman Party (16), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 13, Samajwadi Party (14) and Shiv Sena (4).
The NCP and the Trinamool Congress are a first-time entrant in the hill state. There are 106 independents in the fray.
The Election Commission has set up 7,253 polling stations for 46,08,359 electors, including 23,76,587 men.
Of these, 767 have been declared hypersensitive, an official euphemism to indicate possible trouble spots. The maximum numbers of hypersensitive stations are 197 in Kangra District.
As many as 9,191 electronic voting machines will be deployed.
The Hikkam polling station, at an altitude of 14,567 feet in Lahaul-Spiti, is the highest polling station. It has 344 voters.
Chief Electoral Officer Narinder Chauhan said the state has 9,997 electors above the age of 89 years, while in the age of 90 years there are 1,642 electors.
He said 8,355 electors were above the age of 90 years.
The Sullah assembly constituency in Kangra district has highest 89,293 electors in the state, while Lahaul-Spiti assembly constituency has the minimum of 22,344 electors.
Chauhan said 109,115 voters are between the age group of 18 and 19 and 1,154,162 voters are in the age of 30 and 39.
He said Shyam Saran, 95, from Kalpa in Kinnaur district is the oldest voter in the state. He was among the first to vote after country’s independence in the 1951 elections.
The Ka polling station of Kinnaur has the lowest number of 18 electors.
More than 60 companies of central paramilitary forces, including the ITBP and CRPF, have been deployed to ensure free and fair elections.
Votes for the election will be counted Dec 20.
In 2007, the BJP won 41 seats, the Congress 23, the BSP one and independents three. The lone BSP legislator later joined the BJP. At that time, the poll percentage was 71.61 percent: men 68.36 percent and women 74.01 percent.