New Delhi: Election Commission of India on Friday announced the schedule for Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Election 2022. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, in a press conference held at Vigyan Bhawan in the national capital, announced that the process of elections for Himachal Pradesh Assembly will begin from October 17 and will last till December 10.
For the assembly of Himachal Pradesh, for 68 assembly constituencies in 12 districts, the polling will be conducted on November 12 and the counting will be done on December 8. The term of the current assembly is till January 8, 2023.
The date of issue of Gazette Notification is October 17, last date for making nominations is October 25. The candidates will have till October 29 to withdraw their nominations.
Rajiv Kumar said that in the month full of festivals, the Election Commission is declaring the festival of elections too. Urging the voters to practice their rights of casting votes and reiterating Election Commission’s resolve to facilitate the voters, Kumar announced launch of two applications ‘cVIGIL’ and ‘PwD’. The PwD application facilitates PwD new registrations, migrations, correction in EPIC details. The cVIGIL app is the ‘single app for recording, reporting and resolving violation. The app will locate the complainant and Election Commission personnel will reach the venue withing 60 minutes. There will be a guaranteed response within 100 minutes of complaint.
Kumar announced at least one 100% female personnel polling station in every assembly. There will also be a 100% PwD polling station.
Reiterating EC’s resolve to avoid redundant absentees, EC has issued guidelines after Covid-19, for COs to identify least percentage of voting. Also, in a first, voters of 80 age can caste vote from their homes. To ensure privacy and non-influential voting, the entire process will be taped on video. According to the Election Commission, there are 1.24 crore voters aged over 80 in the country and there are 2.5 lakhs of centennial voters.
Kumar also said that there will be absolutely no tolerance for misbehaviour and misconduct during elections. There will be no cash flow from the states going through elections. He said that the godowns have been checked upon and there is a constant vigil on the godowns of borders of the state for ‘sarees, etc,’ so that voters cannot be lured for wrong reasons.
On the question of whether there were any instructions given to the political parties on the issue of freebies, Kumar said that they will have to justify where they were coming from and this is a separate issue to be discussed. Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of India UU Lalit is to decide the hearing on the matter of freebies.