GANDHINAGAR: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has deployed a whopping 40,000 security personnel for Counting day, December 18, across 37 centres in the state. Counting of votes cast for the state assembly election on December 9 and 14, will be done at all (33) district headquarters. In Ahmedabad, there will be at three sites, Surat and Anand will have two.
B B Swain, chief electoral officer (CEO) Gujarat, said, “At 37 places a total of 182 counting halls have been created. There will be 14 tables for each assembly constituency where from EVMs (electronic voting machines) will be counted. For each assembly seat, the voterverifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips of one booth will be counted after a randomised selection. Each table will have one supervisor, one counting assistant and one micro observer. All 182 assembly seat counting centres will have one general observer appointed by the ECI. All counting will be webcast and the ECI, CEO’s office and district authorities will be able to watch it live. A total of around 10,000 counting staff and 10,000 support staff will be on duty. Around 20,000 security personnel will be deployed at counting centres. We have deployed more stringent security to avoid any kind of clashes. There will be three-layered security checks at counting centres. No mobiles or any kind of electronic items will be permitted inside the counting centre. At present, all EVM machines in 182 strongrooms, from where they will be brought to the counting at the centre according to standard procedure set by the ECI. Counting of paper ballots of government employees will start at 8.00am while EVM vote counting will start at 8.30am onwards everywhere.” Regarding complaints about EVMs and the VVPAT system, Swain said, “We have checked every complaint according to ECI guidelines and there are no irregularities.”
Source : timesofindia