Shimla (The Hawk): The 68-member Assembly will be chosen by more than 50 lakh voters in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday during the single-phase election that started at 8 a.m. and will last until 5 p.m.
"There was no news of any delay in the beginning of the election process, despite the cold weather and minor snags at polling booths in select places," an electoral officer told IANS.
24 of the 412 candidates are women, while 388 are men.
55,92,828 people will cast ballots to choose their representatives. 193,106 of them are 18 to 19-year-olds who are casting their first ballots.
There are 56,501 voters who are disabled and 121,409 voters over the age of 80.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress are the leading contenders.
The BJP leadership, led by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, appears to be banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "charisma" in the face of strong anti-incumbency winds, while the main Opposition Congress is eyeing a return to power by courting its 2.5 lakh government workers, the state's key vote pool, with a promise to reinstate the old pension scheme.
The senior leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is running in the Assembly elections for the first time, has been absent from the state as its leaders concentrate on growing their support base in another Gujarat state that is also headed for elections.
The BJP had won 44 seats in the 2017 Assembly elections, compared to the Congress's 21, the CPM's 1, and Independents' 2.
The voting percentage was 75.57%.
On December 8, the votes cast on Saturday will be tallied.
(Inputs from Agencies)
