All eyes were pinned on the outcome of Jamshedpur East assembly seat with outgoing chief minister Raghubar Das and his former ministerial colleague Saryu Roy locked in a bitter electoral battle from the seat here in East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
The candidates and people, however, will have to wait till late Monday evening as counting of votes will start from Baheragora and end with Jamshedpur East and Jamshedpur West here at the Cooperative College’s counting centre, officials said.
“Counting will start from 8 am in the morning tomorrow and we expect the counting of votes in EVMs to be completed around 3-3.30 pm. Thereafter, five VVPAT slips per assembly seats will be matched which too may take another two hours of so, by which time it’s almost dark around 5 pm. The counting will start with postal ballots and postal ballots received till 7.45 am will be counted. There will be assembly-wise scanners for the counting of electronically transferred postal ballot system (ETPBS),” Ravishankar Shukla, deputy commissioner cum district election officer, East Singhbhum, told the media late on Saturday.
Officials said after Baheragora, counting will be done for Ghatsila, Potka, Jugsalai, Jamshedpur East and Jamshedpur West. This time, the counting will be table-wise and not round-wise. CCTVs will be monitoring the entire counting process of EVMs and videography of the counting process will also be done. In case of any technical fault in controlling units, VVPAT slips will be counted in such seats.
Shukla said 700 police personnel would be deployed at the counting centre on Monday and eight checking barriers have been set up. No one without authorised passes would be allowed on the counting premises and even candidates would not be allowed to carry mobile phones inside the counting halls. Counting agents will have to enter the centre by 7am.
Election Commission of India (ECI) have appointed six separate observers for monitoring the counting process. Two additional observers — BC Patra for Jamshedpur West seat and Partha Sarathi Sen Sharma for Jamshedpur East seat — will look after the process. Patra is ECI secretary, while Sharma is joint secretary in the chemicals and fertilisers ministry. IAS from Manipur-Tripura cadre Gavde has been appointed as observer for Jugsalai seat.
