SHIMLA-6^th May, 2024-Political parties being one of the important stakeholders in the democratic process need to be more aware about the changes in the process, this was said by Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Maneesh Garg while chairing a meeting of representatives of political parties here today.

He said that Gazette notification for election for Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha bye election’ 2024 will be notified on 7^th May and the nomination will start on the same day at 11.00 am. The last date of nomination will be 14^th May. Scrutiny of nominations will be done on 15^th May and the last date of withdrawal of candidatures will be on 17^th May, 2024.

CEO also sensitized the representatives about the nomination process and its various aspects. He said that nomination papers can be filed at any time between 11 am to 3 pm. Any candidate can file more than one set of nomination papers and not more than four.

He also gave detailed information regarding voting through postal ballot papers by different categories of employees on election duty, employees on essential services and setting up of state clearing centre at Shimla for exchange of the blank and casted postal ballots. The venues where these categories of voters will cast their votes as well as the tentative dates was also informed.

He also gave details about the procedure for voting through postal ballot for absentee voters.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dalip Negi, Naresh Verma, L.S. Mehta of Congress party, Shubham Singh Guleria of BJP, Sunil Vashisth of CPI (M) and Anil Kapoor of BSP alongwith senior officers of the election department were present in the meeting.