Counting of votes on May 27 at 123 centres

Hyderabad: The State Election Commission would take up counting of the ballots of the Parishad elections on May 27 at 123 counting stations all over the State to announce the results of the polls held in three phases.

As the polling for the third phase ended peacefully on Monday, the SEC shifted its focus on the counting of the votes. State Election Commissioner V Nagi Reddy revealed the details of the counting process at a media conference on Wednesday.

He said that the ballot boxes are stored in 5,659 strong rooms under tight security. He informed that the counting would be held in three stages. First, the ballots would be removed from the boxes, without opening the folds, and they would be made into bundles and each bundle would have 27 ballots.

The bundles would be put in a drum and they would be mixed. In the second stage the bundles would be sent to the counting tables. Each table would be given 40 bundles and 1,000 votes would be counted in each round.

Each MPTC seat would be provided with two counting tables. The bundles would be opened and the ballots with stamps put by voters would be demonstrated for five seconds to the counting agents and would be dropped in the tray specified to each party or candidate.

In case of the stamp was not put properly it would be referred to the Returning Officer. After the RO gives his nod, the ballot paper would be sent to the counting table. In the final stage the counting would be done.

He said that the counting for the ZPTCs may take about 15 rounds, as they consists 30,000 votes. He said that arrangements have been made to ensure that the results are announced by 5 pm on May 27.

Nagi Reddy said that the voter turnout in the three phases was satisfactory as it was recorded 77.46 per cent. He said that it was much low than the poll percentage of GP elections which stood at 88 per cent.

The poll percentage of the Parliament elections in the state was 62.6 per cent whereas it was 73.4 per cent in Assembly polls.

He informed that as many as 1.20 crore voters exercised their right to vote out of the total electors strength of 1.56 crore. He said that 59 lakh male voters and 61 lakh female voters participated in the polling.

Nagi Reddy said that out of 538 ZPTCs unanimous election had taken place in four seats and out of 5,817 MPTCs unanimous election was taken place at 158 seats.

He said that decision on conducting the repolling in one MPTC seat where the Congress candidate was offered Rs 10 laksh to withdraw his nomination, would be taken after receiving the directions from the court.

He said that mixing of ballot papers took place in seven places due to the mistakes at various levels. The officials, with overconfidence, committed mistakes at the printing press, distribution and at booth level.

He said that those brought out the ballot papers from the polling stations would be prosecuted. Nagi Reddy said that the election of the Mandal Parishad chairperson and Zilla Parishad chairperson would be taken up in July.

The term of the MPP chairperson would end on July 3 in all the mandals, except in old Khammam district. The term of the ZP chairpersons would end on July 4 for all the ZPs except in old Khammam district. The election of the Mandal and ZP chairpersons in old Khammam district would take place after August 5.

As far as elections to the Urban Local Bodies were concerned, the government is yet to take delimitation of wards and determination of the reservations to the ward members and the chairpersons of municipalities.