Mandi, May 15
The exit-poll results have not only made supporters of various parties apprehensive, but also left the general public in Mandi anxious, as most of these exit-polls have predicted BJP’s victory by a huge margin and the installation of Narendra Modi as the next prime minister of India.

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh contested as the Congress candidate against BJP’s Ram Swaroop Sharma from the Mandi parliamentary seat.

Pratibha had won the seat in the by-election held in June 2013 with a huge margin (1.36 lakh votes) by defeating BJP candidate Jai Ram Thakur.

Stakes are high for the Congress in Mandi, but party leaders, despite being confident of Pratibha’s victory, are still seen verifying figures with party workers at the grassroots level.

On the other hand, euphoric BJP leaders are also making their own calculations assessing the impact of the overall predicted mandate in BJP’s favour at the national level.

Since the Mandi parliamentary seat has remained by and large a Congress stronghold in the past elections, many people are keenly waiting for the outcome this time.

The election result here would be important for both the BJP and the Congress and has become a hot topic of discussion too.

Congress leaders are quite confident of their win. A worker said: “Pratibha Singh will win the seat as this has remained a Congress stronghold for long. Moreover, there is no effect of Modi wave here.”

A happy BJP leader,on the other hand, said: “This election will witness a change in governance and the Mandi constituency is no exception. The result here will ensure BJP candidate Ram Swaroop Sharma’s victory.”

The counting of votes for three tribal Assembly segments will be held in Chamba for Bharmour, in Keylong for Lahaul and Spiti and Rekong Peo for Kinnaur.

The counting of four Assembly segments of Kullu, Ani, Banjar and Manali will be held at Kullu and votes of Rampur will be counted at Rampur.

Returning Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner, Mandi, Devesh Kumar said, "First counting of postal ballots will begin in the morning and the result of the Mandi constituency will be out by about 12.30pm."

Shimla, May 15
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has set up 16 counting centres in the state for the counting of votes. The counting will begin at 8 am in the presence of election observers.

Dinesh Malhotra, returning officer for Shimla Lok Sabha constituency, who inspects the counting centre set at the Centre of Excellence Degree College Sanjauli, today said: “All arrangements have been made for the counting to be held tomorrow as the votes will be retrieved from the sealed Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) kept in the strong room, guarded round-the-clock by a three-tier security system as per the ECI direction.”

The counting will begin at 8 am at the centre here with the counting of postal ballots on 18 counting tables set up at the centre to count votes polled in seven constituencies-Shimla (Rural), Shimla (Urban), Kusumpati, Chopal, Rohru, Jubbal-Kotkhai, Theog, he added.

The sealed EVMs kept in the locked and sealed strong rooms will be opened in the presence of election observers, the ROs, AROs, polling agents of candidates and parties at 7.30 am tomorrow morning. The same procedure will be followed in all 16 counting centres in the state, Narender Chauhan, who interacted with the ECI through video-conferencing today, said.

The Kangra district, which has 13 Assembly segments, has four counting centres-two in Dharamsala and one in Nurpur and Palampur.

The counting of four Assembly constituencies in Chamba district, including tribal segment of Bharmour, which falls in Mandi Lok Sabha seat, will be done at Chamba district headquarters, said DC Chamba, Sandeep Kadam.

The counting for Mandi district would be done at Mandi and Sundernagar, while that for Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur, Rampur (all in Mandi Lok Sabha Assembly segments) would be done at Keylong, Reckong Peo and Rampur, respectively.

The ROs informed that the ECI has provided them with separate batteries in case EVM batteries do not respond.

The counting of votes for the all Assembly constituencies in Hamipur, Bilaspur and Una districts would be at the respective district headquarters.

The final results of each constituency would be announced at Shimla, Mandi, Hamirpur and Dharamsala by the respective ROs.

The results would be out by 12 noon, the ROs said.

There would be 12- 16 rounds of counting depending on the number of EVMs. The ROs would announce the results after each round to the public through the public address system set up in front of the counting centre. 

Hamirpur, May 15
With the 17 Assembly segments that constitute the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat falling under five districts, the counting of votes will be taken up at five different places and the final declaration of results will be made by the Hamirpur Deputy Commissioner, who is the Returning Officer for the segment.

The counting of votes will start at 8 am with the postal ballots. The counting for all Assembly segments will be taken up simultaneously. Extra security personnel have been deployed in the district to ensure that there is no poll-related violence. The counting for the five Assembly segments of Hamirpur, Sujanpur, Bhoranj, Badsar and Nadaun will take place at Senior Secondary School for Boys near the bus stand.

SHIMLA, May 15
Strict security arrangements have been made for counting of votes for the Shimla seat which will be taken up at four counting centres. Besides the district headquarters of Shimla, Solan and Sirmaur, an additional counting centre has been set up at Paonta Sahib.

The counting of 15 Assembly segments of Rohru, Chopal, Theog, Jubbal and Kotkhai, Shimla (Rural), Shimla (Urban) and Kusumpti in Shimla district, Solan, Arki, Kasauli, Doon and Nalagarh in Solan district and Nahan, Pachhad and Paonta Sahib will be taken up while the counting of votes for Renukaji and Shillai be taken up in the second phase in Nahan and Paonta Sahib.

The counting centre for all seven Assembly constituencies of Shimla district will be at Government College, Sanjauli, the counting for five constituencies of Solan district be taken up at Solan while votes of five constituencies of Sirmaur be counted at Nahan and Paonta.

Dharamsala, May 15
The counting for 13 Assembly segments falling in the Kangra parliamentary seat will be held at four centres in Kangra district tomorrow. C Paulrasu, Deputy Commissioner-cum-Returning Officer of the Kangra parliamentary constituency, said: “The counting will be held at two centres in Dharamsala and once each in Nurpur and Palampur. The counting for four Assembly constituencies of Chamba district, that are also part of the Kangra parliamentary seat, will be held in Chamba district.”

Out of the 13 Assembly constituencies falling in the Kangra parliamentary segment two are in the Hamirpur parliamentary segment.

The DC said the counting for 15 polling stations of Nagrota Bagwan, 17 of Shahpur and 18 of Dharamsala would be held at Government College Dharamsala.

Meanwhile, the counting for 10 polling stations of Dehra and 11 of Jaswan Pragpur would be held at Prayas Bhawan. These polling stations are part of the Hamirpur parliamentary seat.

The counting of six polling booths of Nurpur, eight of Fatehpur and nine of Jawali would be held at Government College, Nurpur.

The counting of 12 polling booths of Jawalamukhi, 13 of Jaisinghpur, 14 of Sullah, 19 of Palampur and 20 of Baijnath would be held at Vikram Batra Government College at Palampur in Kangra district.

Shimla, May 15
The state has evoked a poor response from over 74,000 service electors as only 4,506 postal ballots (6 per cent) have been received for the four Lok Sabha constituencies. The first round of counting of votes will start with counting of postal ballots in all four Lok Sabha constituencies tomorrow at 8 am.

According to the information gathered by The Tribune here today from the four constituencies, returning officers (ROs) of Shimla, Mandi, Hamirpur and Kangra said the response though postal ballots was poor.

The Shimla Lok Sabha seat has received about 800 postal ballots out of about 9000 service electors. Kangra has received 1,013 out of about 29,000 service electors, Hamipur 1500 out of 22,000 and Mandi received 1,193 out of 9,993.

The service electors could be crucial at a time when the state has recorded 65.14 per cent polling, the second highest after 1998 Lok Sabha elections when the state had recorded 66 per cent polling.

Though the ROs expect more postal ballots from the service electors tomorrow, the service electors rued that they did not receive postal ballots from the district administration as the Army and the civic administration lack coordination.

“We have dispatched postal ballots by April 25 to the service electors, but we have received just 800 postal ballots for the Shimla Lok Sabha constituency”, said Dinesh Malhotra, DC-cum-RO for the Shimla Lok Sabha seat.

ROs of Kangra, Hamirpur and Mandi also claimed that they had sent the postal ballots but they received 1,013 for the Kangra seat, 1,500 postal ballots from Hamipur and 1,193 for Mandi.

The ROs said they received some undelivered postal ballots back as the addresses furnished by the Army authorities turned out to be wrong, said RC Thakur, RO Hamirpur.

State electoral officer Narender Chauhan said he would consider postal ballots for counting if these were received before 8 am tomorrow as the first round of counting will be that of postal ballots as per direction of Election Commission of India.

Star campaigners, including local campaigners, talk of welfare of the exservicemen and serving soldiers, but they have not visited soldiers in cantts and polyclinics in the towns, leave alone the forward posts in Kinnaur, Leh and Ladakh, rued the soldiers.

Shimla, May 15
Elaborate security arrangements have been made to ensure peaceful counting of votes for four Lok Sabha seats and the Sujanpur Assembly byelection held on May 7 and 66 centres have been set up for counting at 16 places.

Three-tier security has been provided at the counting 16 stations. The inner-most tier comprises paramilitary forces which include eight companies of the ITBP, middle tier comprises state armed police and the outer tier will be managed by the district police.

Besides the district police, about 1000-1500 cops of Central and state armed forces have been deployed at the counting centres, IG (Law and Order) Satinder Pal Singh said, adding that the extra force was being provided at district headquarters of Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi and Shimla to prevent any post counting clashes and maintain peace during victory processions.

The entry of people within the 100 mts radius had been banned and only polling officials, candidates and their polling agents would be allowed in counting halls.

He said during elections, security was beefed up on all 92 nakas on Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand borders and now this additional force would be used at counting centres. The additional forces were required as May 16 would not be a dry day and drunken brawls could occur after the results were declared, he said.

The counting of 66 Assembly segments would commence at 8.00 am.

The prominent among those in the fray are former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, president of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha and sitting MP from Hamirpur Anurag Thakur, sitting MP from Shimla Virender Kashyap, sitting Congress MP from Mandi Pratibha Singh and BJP rebel and sitting MP from Kangra Dr Rajan Sushant, contesting as AAP candidate, and former Himachal minister and MP Chander Kumar.

Kullu, May 15
The BJP did not permit official of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to participate in the press conference of the Leader of the Opposition, Prof PK Dhumal, at Hotel Sarwari here today.

Dhumal was on his visit to Kanyal village near Manali to pay condolences to family members of former minister Kunj Lal Thakur, who passed away recently.

Dhumal said the ECI did not maintain unbiased image during these elections. He said specific complaints made to the ECI went unheard as there was no action by the authorities. He alleged some senior officials tried to manipulate postal ballots under the influence of a Congress minister in Shimla. He asserted that despite such malpractices, the BJP would win all four LS seats in Himachal.

He said cement rates were again being increased and there was a rise of over Rs 40 per bag within one year, while the BJP had reduced the price by Rs 25 during his tenure as the CM. He said the present Congress government was busy in implicating false cases against honest officials and closing the pending cases against corrupt ministers. 

Shimla, May 15
Candidates from the Congress and the BJP spent the day making last-minute calculations and interacting with party workers a day before counting.

Despite maintaining a calm exterior and not letting anxiety get the better of them, they interacted with their counting agents who will go in the counting halls. While Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh attended office and hosted a lunch for RBI Governor Raghuram G Rajan, former chief minister and BJP leader PK Dhumal was in Kullu today.

The tremendous stress being faced by Congress candidates is understandable, considering the grim picture being painted by the exit polls but some of the BJP nominees too seem to be quite anxious, considering the unpredictable nature of the electorate.

“I am confident that the results will be in our favour as I have received a positive feedback from the people,” said a very relaxed Shanta. He said he would not be going for the counting and stay home. Shanta Kumar spent time meeting workers at his house in Palampur.

Anurag Thakur, who is contesting from Hamirpur, spent the last two days in Bilaspur and Hamirpur, interacting with party workers.

Pratibha Singh, sitting MP of Mandi and wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, today left for Mandi to be present for the counting. She spent the last few days with her family here, besides attending to some social engagements.

Congress candidate from Kangra Chander Kumar spent a relaxed day watching television and meeting workers at his home in Jawli. He intends watching the political developments all over the country on television tomorrow and will not go to the counting centre. Congress candidate from Shimla Mohan Lal Brakta will be present in Shimla at the time of counting.

On the other hand, Congress nominee from Hamirpur Rajinder Rana was in Samirpur today attending to social engagements and will be in Hamirpur at the time of counting.

“I do not have an iota of doubt about the victory of the Congress both in Hamirpur as well as Sujanpur from where my wife is contesting,” he said.

Shimla, May 15
Following its revival, the Himachal Pradesh Private Universities Regulatory Commission (HPPURC) has a tough job at hand, as it will now look into the alleged lapses by private universities.

The Supreme Court had restored the “status quo ante” on October 19, 2013, when the HP Private Educational Institutions (Regulatory Commission) Act, 2010, was quashed by the Himachal Pradesh High Court.

In the absence of a regulatory commission, private universities had a free play and the government, which assumed the role of the regulatory commission, allowed the violations to go unchecked.

The commission had detected over 351 cases of violation of admission norms by private universities in 2013-14 and initiated action against these, but due to scrapping of the commission, the entire process was stalled and no action was taken to cancel the admissions made in the violation of prescribed norms.

The universities were not permitted to admit students placed under compartment but some private universities admitted them and later got approval from the government after the regulatory commission was quashed. But Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) students suffered as it followed the prescribed norms.

The decision to allow private universities to admit students under compartment not only violated norms, but also discriminated against students of the state-run HPU.

The students are up in arms over the “double standards” followed to accommodate private universities. “It amounts to appeasing private universities that are charging hefty fee from students,” said Rahul Prashar, a student leader.

Prashar said either the government should cancel all these back-door admissions or allow similar concessions to HPU students, who are high on merit, but average when it comes to their financial background.

The government has already renewed the courses of private universities for 2014-15 and also allowed some universities to allow new courses. The enrolment in under-graduate technical courses (B.Tech) in private universities in 2012-13 was 64.78 per cent, but it reduced by 13.38 per cent to 51.40 per cent in 2013-14. An official of the commission said: “The commission has no role in it, but it will strictly enforce the admission norms. The commission has received the records from the government and will look into the complaints and other alleged irregularities and violations.”

Solan, May 15
With increased incidences of fire in jhuggis in the state’s industrial area of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN), the local administration will soon initiate a drive to vacate these unauthorised structures.

As per an estimate, about 400-500 jhuggis have been burnt in the past three months in various fire incidents. A two-and-a-half year child was burnt to death in one such incident recently.

A large number of jhuggis exist on the private land where the land owner was charging rent without providing any basic amenities. Some jhuggis were also present on the government land, though their number was relatively less.

SDM, Nalagarh, Lalit Jain said the local administration would soon educate jhuggi dwellers to vacate these places, especially those which were housed on the government land and a 15-day period would be given to them to find an alternative place.

Since the local administration had earlier began an exercise to rid the BBN of jhuggis, details such as names of land owners and extent of land on which such dwelling units existed were already available with revenue officials.

Jain said efforts would be made to encourage the managements of industrial units to re-locate the jhuggis dwellers in alternative low-cost houses. Since these people worked in the industrial units, some arrangement could be worked out, he said.

Help from the Town and Country Planning Department and the BBN Development Authority would be sought to serve notices to private land owners who had allowed jhuggis to come up on their land to get them evicted as these structures were unauthorised.

It was, however, worth mentioning that though the state government had worked out a proposal to provide low cost housing to these jhuggi dwellers, nothing concrete had materialised and the proposal was lost in files only.

Though officials had mooted a proposal to study such a model which had been successfully launched in Chandigarh, a little had been done to implement it.

Since migrant labourers inhabited these jhuggis, they had a little means to afford anything costlier and this had made the task of rehabilitating them tougher.

As per an estimate, 20,000 jhuggis existed in the BBN area and as many as 73 private land owners had been identified for having raised these unauthorised structures.

With a view to ensuring safety of these dwellers, minimum standards, including an adequate gap between jhuggis, use of non-inflammable material and tin roof, availability of basic amenities, would be made mandatory for the existing jhuggis, confided Superintendent of Police S Arul Kumar. These measures would reduce the likelihood of fire and ensure less damage, he added.

Shimla, May 15
The Aadhar Card Scheme will help banks check their non-performing assets and keep track of borrowers while sharing of information with other banks will put a tab on defaulters. Reserve Bank of India Governor Dr Raghuram Rajan stated this while interacting with students and faculty of Himachal Pradesh University here today.

The RBI governor was of the view that supply side bottlenecks were primarily responsible for inflation and because in the short run it is not possible to address such issues, there was no other way except following a tight monitory policy.

Admitting that one of the reasons for slow economic growth is the allocation of resources and problems with the institutional mechanism for allocation of resources such as spectrum and coal, he opined that the current slowdown in the economic growth was partly due to the global slowdown and the fact that the Indian economy had been growing at a faster pace earlier.

Replying to a question about the effect of weather, especially monsoons on food prices, he said it was difficult to predict anything at this moment as the data does not support co-relation between the two. If there is a poor monsoon and rising food prices, the RBI takes a note, revise its monitory policy accordingly.

Chamba, May 15
Residents of Gadfari area in Churah subdivision here have urged the state government to upgrade Government Primary School, Nakrod, to high school.

They say students, who intend to study after clearing Class V at the Nakrod school, have to enrol themselves in either Thalli, Chilli or Tikri schools to get matriculation education.

Students of the area, especially girls, have to tread over 5 km, facing a great difficulty and at the same time feeling a sense of insecurity. Some girls and boys have to leave their studies and sit at homes after doing Class V, they rue.

Shimla, May 15
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh launched ATM-cum-debit card of State Cooperative Bank here today in the presence of RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. The State Cooperative Bank has become the first cooperative bank of the country to have its own RuPay ATM-cum-debit card.

Chairman of the bank Harsh Mahajan apprised that the cooperative bank was a leading bank among the cooperative banks having customers base of nearly 13 lakh in six districts. He said it was a bank with the network of 190 branches and 17 extension counters in the remote areas.

It is the only cooperative bank to have all its branches on the Core Banking Solutions (CBS) mode, he said. 

Nurpur, May 15
Yogi Seth, a philanthropist from neighbouring Pathankot, has been solemnising marriages of girls from poor families by funding the whole expenses for the past over 15 years.

Seth, a businessman, has been solemnising girls’ marriages every year in Pathankot and its surrounding, but this year, following the motivation of Nurpur MLA Ajay Mahajan, he has decided to fund the marriage of a girl of Kotpalari near here.

Recently, he shouldered the whole financial responsibility of solemnising the marriage of Neha Devi, daughter of Des Raj of Kotpalari, with Raj Kumar of Indpur (Indora).

The marriage was solemnised in a traditional and customary way at the village. He himself performed ‘kanyadan’ of the bride during the ceremony and paid for all wedding arrangements and marriage gifts such as utensils, beddings, furniture and clothes.

The philanthropist said his inspiration for this noble cause was Late Kailash Mahajan, wife of Late former minister Sat Mahajan, who also solemnised marriages of girls.

“After my mother’s death in 1991, I made up my mind to solemnise the marriage of at least one girl from a poor family every year. Me and my family get internal satisfaction in doing so,” he asserted. 

Kangra, May 15
A 26-year-old youth of Dhawala village falling under the Dehra police station committed suicide by consuming pesticides at his residence, the police said here today.

Dehra Sub-Divisional Police Officer BD Bhatia said the deceased, Ajay Kumar, was mentally disturbed for quite some time and he consumed sulphas tablets at his home. When his condition started deteriorating, he was rushed to the Dehra hospital, from where he was referred to the DRPGMC, Tanda, near here. He died in the hospital.

As no suicide note was recovered from him, the cause of taking the extreme step was not known. The body was handed over to the family after postmortem.

Further investigation under Section 174, CrPC, was initiated.

Chamba, May 15
The Akhil Bharatiya Gaddi Janjatiya Vikas Samiti has asked the state government to provide compensation to farmers whose rabi corps have been damaged by the recent heavy rain and hail in Chamba.

Samiti president Lalit Thakur said incessant rain had caused damage to the wheat crop at its harvesting season which varied from place to place.

He urged the government to direct the officials concerned to take stock of the situation and assess the losses caused to the wheat crop.

On the basis of the reports compiled by the officials concerned from the grassroot level, the affected farmers should be given compensation so that they could earn livelihood for their families, he said.

Meanwhile, the samiti president requested the government to improve the condition of roads in different parts of the district. The roads were full of potholes, he lamented. — OC