Shimla, Oct 21 (IANS) Nearly 68 per cent of the 156,624 voters exercised their franchise for by-elections to two Assembly seats in the BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh.
The polling was absolutely peaceful and completely incident-free, an election official told IANS.
Voting figures would likely to increase with a few revisions, he added.
The by-elections to Dharamsala and Pachhad seats were necessitated as Kishan Kapoor and Suresh Kashyap resigned their Assembly seats as they were elected to the Lok Sabha.
In the Dharamsala and Pachhad seats, the polling percentage was 64.50 and 72 per cent, respectively.
Greenhorns Reena Kashyap and Vishal Nehria are the BJP candidates from Pachhad and Dharamsala seats, respectively.
The Congress has fielded former Speaker and seven-time legislator Gangu Ram from Pachhad, and young leader from the Gaddi community, Vijay Inder Karan from Dharamsala.
Dayal Pyari, a BJP rebel contesting as Independent, made the contest triangular in Pachhad.
The main contest is between the BJP and Congress in Dharamsala.
A total of 82,137 voters were eligible to cast vote at 89 polling booths for seven candidates in Dharamsala, while 74,487 voters were eligible to decide the fate of five candidates by casting their ballot at 113 booths in Pachhad.
The counting of votes will be on October 24.
The BJP has 44 seats in the 68-member state Assembly.
–IANS
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