Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Tight security arrangements have been made at all 52 district headquarters for counting of votes polled for 230 assembly seats on December 3. The administrative authorities are also chalking routes for the victory processions to ensure that there is no controversy once the results are announced on the day. For the vote counting work, 4,369 tables have been arranged, average rounds of counting will be fifteen, said Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan during a media briefing on Friday. The vote counting process will be under CCTV surveillance and there will be no live screening of the counting, said the CEO, adding that screens will be installed at various places to display the election results. Every assembly seat will have a separate counting hall and there will be one counting observer for every constituency, the official said.
On an average, 14 tables have been arranged for every assembly seat. But for assembly seats having more polling booths, additional tables have been arranged to ensure that election results are declared within five and half hours to 10 hours; on an average, 18 to 20 tables have been arranged for such assembly seats, he further stated. For instance, in Seoni’s Lakhnadon there were 407 polling booths and for the counting of votes 21 tables have been arranged, similarly Bhander in Datia had 229 booths and for counting 18 tables have been arranged, he elaborated. The counting of votes will start from 8 am and first postal ballots will be counted. The information of every round of counting will be given to the agents of the candidates. Mobiles are banned in voting chambers. No re-polling decision has been taken.
Sailana constituency recorded highest voting percentage at 90.10; Jobat Assembly seat recorded 54.37 % - the lowest Sharing the details of the voting percentage, Rajan said, voting percentage stood at 77.15 % (EVM vote) and if the postal ballots are added then overall voting percentage of the 2023 Assembly elections comes to 77.82 %. Overall, this election saw 2.19 % more voting than the last time which witnessed 75.63 % turnout. Seoni district registered the highest turnout of 86.29 %, while Alirajpur district reported lowest voting percentage of 61.81 %, the CEO said. Informing about the facility to vote from home, he said that as many as 5259 voters aged more than 80 years voted from home. Along with this, 1293 Divyang voters also availed the home voting facility. The government employee postal ballot count is 300423.
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