Staff Correspondent

SHIMLA: The Himachal Pradesh Election Commission has set up more than 7,000 polling stations across the hill State for the upcoming fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections.

The 7,251 polling stations will facilitate about 4,604,830 voters using their franchise through 11,000 electronic voting machines for the four Lok Sabha seats from the State.

According to an official spokesman, 697 of these polling stations have been declared “hyper-sensitive”, 1,263 “sensitive” and 5,291 “ordinary”.

The polling stations falling in the tribal district of Kinnaur, adjoining the international border with China, have the maximum of 36 hyper-sensitive booths, followed by the Paonta Sahib segment with 28 hyper-sensitive polling stations and Indora Assembly constituency in Kangra with 25.

Areas adjoining Jammu & Kashmir in the Chamba segment have the maximum of 55 polling stations, followed by Haroli in Una district with 44 sensitive polling stations.

The Paonta and Baijnath segments have 26 sensitive polling stations each.

About 16,000 police and para-military personnel will be deployed in the State and a three-fold security cover will be provided to the hyper-sensitive and sensitive polling booths. The spokesman said about 30,000 officials would be deployed in the single-phase election scheduled for May 13.

Booth No. 72 at Hikkam in the tribal district of Lahaul and Spiti, situated at about 15,000 feet and having 332 voters, is the highest polling booth in the State. It falls under the Mandi parliamentary segment.