The Himachal Pradesh Election Commission has received 47,296 postal ballots out of the 1,27,287 issued to officials on election duty and Army personnel.
Chief Electoral Officer, (CEO) Maneesh Garg said here on Friday that 32,177 postal ballots have been received by the concerned returning officers so far, out of 59,728 postal ballots issued to the officials deployed for election duty.
Besides, out of the 67,559 postal ballots issued to the serving Army personnel, 15,099 ballots have been received by the returning officers in their office till date, he added.
He made an appeal to all the officials deployed on election duty and those in the armed forces to post their postal ballots to their respective returning officers (ROs) at the earliest so that they could reach the destination before December 8.
He said a web application had been launched to keep a day-to-day record of the postal ballots being received by the ROs which was regularly being monitored by the Election Department as well.
“Officials on election duty were already issued postal ballots before proceeding on their poll duty and thereafter there was no such provision to issue the same,” he said.
Apart from this, as per the directions of the Election Commission, postal ballots are to be sent only by post to the concerned ROs, and no separate ballot boxes or collection centers, or postal booths are to be set up for this.
In addition, the postal ballots of all those officials in the ambit of essential services who had applied for the same on Form 12-D, were sent to the nodal officers of their departments to be further sent to the ROs.
The ROs had fixed three dates for such essential service officials to cast their votes on any one day in their respective assembly constituencies at polling booths separately set up for postal ballots. This facility was available for the first time in the assembly elections of 2022, which was completed by 10 November, said Garg.