₹1.38 crore cash, 6L litres of liquor seized in HP, Guj

total of ₹1.38 crore in cash, over six lakh litres of liquor and narcotics worth ₹12.86 crore have been seized by the Election Commission-appointed surveillance and expenditure monitoring teams in poll-bound Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

An official data, updated till Monday, said the teams have seized suspected illicit cash to the tune of ₹1.18 crore, 3.01 lakh litres of liquor worth ₹5.19 crore and 81kg of drugs valued at ₹12.86 crore in Himachal Pradesh that goes to polls in a single phase on November 9.

Nearly 3kg of gold, allegedly being transported as part of election related inducements, has also been seized by these teams in the hill state.

Gujarat, where polls will be held in two phases on December 9 and December 14, has witnessed a seizure of ₹20 lakh suspected illicit cash, 3.08 lakh litre of liquor and 24.38 kg gold and other precious metals till now.

Separately, 3,650 British pounds (about ₹3.11 lakh) has also been seized by the teams in Gujarat, the data said.

The EC has appointed about 200 election expenditure observers apart from other central observers to keep a check on black money and illegal inducements used to bribe voters at the hustings in the two states.

NEWDELHI:A

OVER 1,800 VISUALLY CHALLENGED PERSONS TO CAST VOTES IN HP

A total of 1,844 visually challenged persons will exercise their franchise in the elections in Himachal Pradesh, chief electoral officer Pushpendra Rajput said here on Tuesday. There are 50,25,941 voters in the state.

Mandi has the maximum of 671 visually challenged registered voters, and Lahaul and Spiti district the minimum 21 electors. Kangra has 82 such voters, Hamirpur 85, Shimla 60, Kullu 319, Una 51, Bilaspur 187, Chamba 62, Solan 183, Sirmour 37 and Kinnaur 86 electors.

He said that the Election Commission had introduced Braille signage features on electronic voting machines to facilitate them to cast votes.

All presiding officers have been provided Braille ballot paper sheets to assist the voters.

IANS

SHIMLA:

Sujanpur (Hamirpur): Dhumal facing his former protégé Rajinder Rana (Congress)

Nadaun (Hamirpur): Congress state president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu versus Vijay Agnihotri Mandi: BJP’s Anil Sharma vs Congress’ Champa Thakur, daughter of Kaul Singh Dehra (Kangra): BJP senior leader Ravinder

Ravi facing Congress Rajya Sabha MP Viplove Thakur Dalhousie (Chamba): AICC secretary in-charge of Punjab Asha Kumar versus BJP’s DS Thakur

Union health minister

He spent weeks placating rebels and campaigning for others. But even after losing out on the CM canddiate race, Nadda remains a key organisational man. He started out as a student leader in 1975 with the JP movement and entered state politics by winning his hometown of Bilaspur in 1993