HYDERABAD: The counting of votes of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections began at 8 am on Friday.
The officials will first count the postal ballots, and later mix ballot papers from different polling booths. As many as 25 ballot papers will be bundled together.
After bundles are prepared, the counting will take place. In each round, around 14,000 votes will be counted.
Counting of votes is taking place in 30 centres across the city and as many as 8,152 staff are involved in the process.
As many as 34.5 lakh voters, out of total of 74 lakh electors exercised their franchise in the GHMC polls held on December 1.
There are 150 Divisions in the GHMC. However, repolling was held in Old Malakpet Division on Thursday, as a CPI candidate had been mistakenly allotted a CPM symbol on the ballot.
Almost over half a dozen exit polls have predicted that the ruling TRS will bag majority of the Divisions. According to the exit polls, the TRS may win anywhere between 70 to 101 Divisions.
However, as per early trends, BJP seems to be giving a tough fight to TRS and was also leading in the postal ballot count.
Meanwhile, the saffron party has also decided to move a House Motion in the High Court against the State Election Commission's decision that any mark on the ballot paper can be considered.
"The vote cannot be rejected merely on the ground that the mark indicating the vote is indistinct or made more than once, if the intention that the vote shall be for a particular candidate clearly appears from the way the paper is marked," the rule regarding this in a notification issued by the SEC read.
Officials had mentioned these regulations to the Counting Observers. The BJP is opposed to this.