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| Counting of votes for 542 LS seats, 4 state assemblies begins | | | |  New Delhi May 23(Agencies)
Counting of votes for the 17th Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh began this morning amidst tight security arrangements.
Latest Trends available for Lok Sabha elections show NDA is leading in 140 UPA 46 and others 31.
Prominent candidates who are leading include Senior BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Party Chief Amit Shah, Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
In the Assembly elections, trends received from two seats in Andhra Pradesh show that YSR Congress is leading in Ongole and Mamallapuram Seats.
Out of the total 543 Parliamentary seats, elections were held in 542 constituencies. Over eight thousand candidates are in the fray.
The elections to the Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu was cancelled on the grounds of excessive use of money power.
The results are expected by late evening due to tallying of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips, VVPAT with the Electronic Voting Machines.
This is the first time that in General Elections results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines.
The exercise is taking place in five polling stations selected randomly per Assembly segment.
In Uttar Pradesh, counting of votes is taking place at 77 centres.
Our Lucknow correspondent reports, All the strong room locks were opened in front of representatives of political parties or candidates and the observers of the Election Commission in every counting centre.
Special cabins have been formed for matching of VVPAT slips. The three-tier security system at counting centre is having Central Armed Police Forces securing the inner circle and PAC and State police in other layers. The fate of many high profile leaders including Senior BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav, Party Patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and many presents and former Union Ministers is sealed in the EVMs.
In Madhya Pradesh, around 1,800 CCTV cameras have been installed at the 292 centres across 51 district headquarters and 15 thousand personnel deployed. Our correspondent reports that the political fate of 438 candidates including 38 women and one-third gender will be decided today.
Congress and BJP are in a direct fight in almost all the 29 seats in the state. Prominent among them are BJP state resident Rakesh Singh from Jabalpur, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar from Morena, ex-Union Minister and Congress nominee Kantilal Bhuria from Ratlam, Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna and Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath from Chhindwada.
The Bhopal Lok Sabha seat is being watched keenly because of the contest between Congress veteran Digvijay Singh and Malegaon blast case accused Pragya Singh Thakur.
In Odisha, simultaneous counting of votes for the elections to 21 Lok Sabha and 146 Assembly seats are taking place at 63 centres in 22 districts. Our Correspondent reports that One-hundred 72 platoons of Special Armed Police and sixty-nine companies of Central Armed Police Forces have been deployed to avoid any untoward incidents during the process. Around 6 thousand 7 hundred persons have been deployed for the counting in 152 halls across the State.
Our Andhra Pradesh correspondent reports three-tier security is in place at the counting centres to ensure smooth passes of counting for 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies.
A 24-hour EVM Control Room has been set up at Nirvachan Sadan in New Delhi to monitor complaints related to polled EVMs. The Control Room contact number is 011-23052123.
News Services Division of All India Radio has made elaborate arrangements for providing authentic and latest results of Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in four states. For the first time, AIR will continuously broadcast a special programme on election results for 40 hours.
News Services Division has started 10-minute bulletins throughout the day from 7 am today to 11 pm tomorrow. The English and Hindi mid-day bulletins will also be extended by 15 minutes which will continue up to Monday. | | | | |
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