Ready for counting of votes: Dharwad DC

DHARWAD: The stage is set for counting of votes of Dharwad Lok Sabha seat on the sprawling campus of University of Agricultural Sciences on Thursday.


Deputy commissioner and district election officer Deepa Cholan said on Saturday that counting will begin at 8am sharp and results are expected to be out by 5pm.

Unlike the previous polls wherein results were announced by noon, this year the counting process will be lengthy as the Election Commission has instructed to count VVPAT slips and tally them with the votes in EVMs.

The EC has asked officials to count five VVPAT units in each assembly segment. Dharwad has eight assembly segments and hence 40 VVPAT units will be counted in a separate cell. The counting of VVPAT slips will be taken up after 15 rounds of counting of votes polled in EVMs.

Tight security

Three-layer security has been given to the strong rooms and the same will be in place for counting too. The district administration has conducted meetings with political leaders on do's and do not's and they have to strictly abide by the rules, Deepa said.

Mobile phones cannot be used within the counting centre and even counting agents appointed by political parties are not exempt from it. Only ECI observers can use cell phones. Journalists can use their phones only at the media centre established in Building No. 2, said Deepa.

She added that during polling held on April 23, two cases have been reported in Hubballi-Dharwad West constituency wherein the mock votes polled were not deleted from the EVM before the polling began. This incident took place at polling booth number 198 and 249.

“The officials cleared the mock votes before voting began but could not delete the votes in the control unit. Hence, the Election Commission has directed to compulsorily count the VVPAT slips in these two polling booths. Accordingly, along with 40 VVPAT units, two VVPAT units from these polling booths will be counted,” she added.