As Telangana waits with bated breath on the election results on Sunday morning, the first indication from the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will come around 10 a.m. when the first round is likely to be completed.
Officials said the process will start from 6 a.m. itself with the unlocking of EVM machines in the presence of the candidates and their election agents. Postal ballots would be counted first from 8 a.m. and the EVMs would be opened as soon as the postal ballot counting is completed. If the postal ballot counting is delayed the EVM counting would start parallelly.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Telangana Vikas Raj said all arrangements have been made for smooth conducting of counting which will begin at 8 a.m. at 49 counting centres covering all the 119 Assembly constituencies. Police forces have been deployed at all the centres with a two-tier security ring. Only those with the passes issued by the Election Commission of India will be allowed after a thorough check.
At the counting centre, the inner layer of the security will be taken care of by the Central forces while the outer layer will see the reserved police of the State. The State police will be the third layer controlling the counting centres on the whole and the traffic around it. As many as 40 companies of Central Armed Police Forces have been deployed to guard the strong rooms.
Mr. Vikas Raj said the EVMs were sealed and kept in total security with CCTV surveillance in the presence of the candidates or their party representatives.
The CEO said there will be 1,766 counting tables with 14 counting tables each for every constituency. Six constituencies with more than 500 polling stations will be covered with 28 tables. Each table will have one counting supervisor, one micro-observer and two counting assistants. For counting postal ballots 131 returning officers will be deployed. This time, more postal ballots have been polled in some constituencies, and with many candidates, the process may stretch a bit.
Congress and BRS confident
The majority of the exit polls indicated either a clear majority for the Congress or the party is hovering around the magic mark of 60, but the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) is also confident of retaining power with the help of its friendly parties. The BJP too is confident of playing some kind of role expecting a hung Assembly with the last-minute push of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings.
