Himachal Pradesh has registered about 74 per cent voting in Assembly Election on Sunday. Briefing the media in New Delhi, Deputy Election Commissioner Alok Shukla said that polling was totally peaceful and incident free.

He said voting percentage may go up further as balloting was going on at about 200 polling booths even after 5 PM and large numbers of voters were queuing up to cast their ballots.

On the seizure of cash in the state during the electioneering process, Mr Shukla said, a total of over Rs three crore were intercepted of which 23 lakh were seized as it was not accounted for and the remaining amount returned.

He said drugs, including charas and poppy, worth around Rs 44 lakh was also seized by the authorities.

Election Commission Director General Akshay Raut said, the Commission has issued 73 notices to candidates in the state for paid news of which 19 have already been confirmed by the poll body's committee.

Mr Raut said the remaining cases were being investigated and of the 73 cases, 21 were in Solan followed closely by Mandi with 20.

Mr Raut termed it as an achievement of the Election Commission saying these would be treated as an advertisement and added to the election expenditure of the candidate.