Poll trends to be made public after each round of counting: EC

The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sunil Gupta said that the information relating to the counting will be made available to the public by the end of every round of counting. The information will be provided to the media centre at the counting stations.

The information will also be uploaded to the commission’s website by the end of each round so that people can have some idea of trends of the counting. Gupta also said that there will be a minimum 11 rounds of counting and maximum 25.

Gupta on Friday convened a meeting with all the District Magistrates who are also the District Election Officers (DEO) discussing the Election Commission’s guidelines for the Counting Day. Gupta has instructed the DMs on how the counting personnel have to act inside the counting stations.

The CEO will also hold a video conference with the Returning officers and additional returning officers on May 17 regarding the overall arrangements on the day of counting.

How the information and statistics relating to the poll counting will be uploaded to Genesis, the Commission’s portal would be discussed in the meeting. It may be mentioned that IT officials from ECI in Delhi also held video conferencing with the state officials on how to upload information in the Commission’s portal. The Commission has decided to deploy one observer at every counting station to monitor the situation.

Apart from the observer nobody will be allowed to talk on mobile phones at the counting stations. Around 4 lakh employees will be deployed at all counting premises on 19 May. There are 312 strong rooms and the counting will be held at 90 centers dividing nearly 400 halls and over 4,000 counting tables. The counting will start at around 8 am on May 19 with the postal ballots amidst tight security. Central Forces will be deployed at the counting stations.

Three layer of security arrangements have been made for all the counting premises. The state police will be deployed in the outer layer while the Central Forces will be guarding outside the counting hall. Section 144 of CrPC will be imposed at all the polling stations.