Stage set for poll humdinger

By 12 pm, a clear picture could emerge on the winners. Election Commission officials said counting of votes, which will begin at 8 am, will be over by 3 pm. According to various exit polls shown on TV channels on May 16, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is all set for her second innings and will hold on to power by defeating the Left-Congress alliance convincingly.

Meanwhile, 20,000 personnel drawn from the state and Central governments will be involved in the counting of votes for 294 Assembly seats in the state on Thursday. Election Commission officials said counting will start from 8 am in 90 venues in the state which will be guarded by a three-layered cordon.

Seventy eight companies of Central Armed Forces have been deployed to guard the strong rooms where EVMs have been kept. The first layer of the cordon will be at the 100 m periphery around the counting venue where Section 144 of CrPc will be in force and no cars will be allowed to ply.

“Everyone will have to get down and walk. It will be a pedestrian-only zone,” state Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar said. Frisking will be done in the second layer while the third and innermost layer will be manned by Central Forces and state police will not be allowed inside, officials said.

Inside the counting hall no one will be allowed to leave or enter without the permission of the Returning Officer. Strict instructions have been issued to ensure that no one, besides the observer, are allowed to take mobile phones inside the venue. Each of the 294 constituencies will have one counting observer to monitor the entire process. The observer will be assisted by a number of micro-observers. Functioning under the Returning Officer will be Assistant Returning Officers and counting supervisors. Sarkar said the entire process of counting will be recorded by a videographer. There are altogether 394 counting halls and 312 strong rooms.

On the other hand, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala appeared to have voted for change with BJP all set to dislodge Congress to form government in Assam for the first time.  Congress, meanwhile, may also lose in Kerala. DMK has been tipped to regain power trouncing AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. The Congress could take solace from its projected victory in the tiny Union Territory of Puducherry where it is likely to get power in alliance with the DMK.

The counting of votes will decide the fate of approximately 8,300 candidates including Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi in Assam and CM contender BJP’s Sarbananda Sonowal and Himanta Biswas, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Karunandhi in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, CPI(M) leaders V S Achutanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and CPI(M) Surya Kanta Mishra in West Bengal and Chief Minister M Rangaswamy in Puducherry.

According to Election Commission guidelines, half-an-hour after the postal ballots are counted, the process of counting votes from the EVMs begins. The “ballot unit” is switched on in the presence of senior poll officials and counting agents of candidates and the result command keyed in to get results per machine.