Himachal polling begins under high security: 11,500 cops, 6400 Home guards & paramilitary forces deployed

Himachal Pradesh: The security has been beefed up in Himachal ahead of the polling for the assembly elections, which began at 8am on Thursday. Thousands of policemen, Home guards and paramilitary forces have been given charge to ensure smooth polling takes place. As many as 11,500 police jawans, 6400 Home guards, 65 companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed across the state to monitor the polling.

11,500 #HimachalPradesh police jawans, 6400 Home guards, 65 companies of paramilitary forces deployed across the state for the assembly election: Voting set to begin at 8 AM, visuals from a polling booth in Shimla's Rampur pic.twitter.com/ncRBcsR9Yg

— ANI (@ANI) November 9, 2017

The polling is taking place for all 68 constituencies and is set to go on till 5pm. On Wednesday, the state Excise Department seized 3.26 lakh bulk litre of liquor and Rs 1.48 crore in cash from different parts of Himachal Pradesh since the announcement of the poll, a spokesman for the department said. He said that flying squads, static teams and other police teams and Income Tax Department have so far seized cash totalling Rs 1,48,07,615 from different parts of the state. They seized Rs 14,13,460 of cash today, he said. Out of 285 complaints of violations of Model Code of Conduct received by the CEO, 273 were disposed of, officials said. The results for the assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh will be declared on December 18. The dates were announced on October 12.