VIJAYAWADA: Who is going to be the Chief Minister? Will TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu retain power or will YSRC’s Jagan Mohan Reddy end the reign of his political rival? The six-week-long nail-biting wait of people in the State to know the fate of the two main contenders and their respective party candidates will come to an end by Thursday noon, as election trends for 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies are likely to be known by that time.
Though a clear picture on winners of almost all the constituencies will emerge only by 2 pm, the announcement of final result will take some time as officials will have to complete counting of five VVPAT slips in each Assembly constituency and 35 VVPATs each in 25 Lok Sabha segments.
Counting will commence at 8 am with postal ballots and service votes before EVM are taken up at 8.30 am. On completion of this, officials will pick up five VVPAT slips from each Assembly segment through the lottery system for counting. Counting of each VVPAT box will take 30 to 45 minutes and more depending on the number of slips.
Speaking to media persons on Wednesday, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gopal Krishna Dwivedi said that all the necessary arrangements were made for fair and transparent counting and sought the cooperation of candidates and counting agents in this regard. While one observer would monitor the counting of each Assembly and Parliament constituency, two special observers appointed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) arrived to monitor the process in the State and to give necessary suggestions, according to the CEO. Dwivedi said that of the three lakh odd postal ballots issued, about 2.11 lakh of them came back. Similarly, of the 60,000 service votes, 28,000 came back.
25K staff to count votes
“We will allow all the postal ballots and service votes reaching us till 7 am on Thursday,” he said.
As many as 25,000 employees were deployed to count votes at 350 halls situated in 36 locations across the State. The CEO said in addition to the 35 companies of Central Paramilitary Force which already arrived in the State, 10 Central companies would join them on Thursday. “In all, there are about 25,500 personnel form Central companies and State police to guard counting centres. No disturbance at counting centres will be tolerated.”
Making it clear that mobile phones would not be allowed into counting halls, he said they should be deposited at the counters arranged outside.He further said that two engineers from Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) would be made available at each counting centre to rectify any technical glitches in EVMs. Meanwhile, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu and YSRC chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy reached their respective residences in the capital city on Wednesday and passed necessary suggestions to party cadres. The YSRC chief reached his house at Tadepalli along with his political consultant Prashant Kishor.
Police on high alert
Following an alert from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Central Intelligence Bureau that there are chances of violence on the counting day, State police have tightened security and deployed additional forces in 25 problematic Assembly segments to thwart any untoward incident on Thursday.