Bhubaneswar: An average of 30 rounds of counting will take place in each of the 146 Assembly constituencies in Odisha on May 23, the day scheduled for the counting of votes, said State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Surendra Kumar here on Tuesday.
“On Election Commission’s permission, an additional 411 counting tables have been allotted to the State to speed up counting process. Odisha will see an average of 30 rounds of count per constituency. Patnagarh will maximum 49 rounds of counting while Sambalpur will record minimum 19 rounds of counting,” said Kumar. Hence, the result of Samablpur Assembly constituency will be declared first.
Odisha voted for 21 Lok Sabha and 146 Assembly elections simultaneously in four phases on April 11, 28, 23 and 29. Counting of votes in the State will clock a longer duration than its national counterparts because of simultaneous counting for State Assembly elections along with Lok Sabha.
With addition of additional 411 tables, counting of votes will be conducted in a total of 2462 tables.
Counting of votes will be taken up at 63 centres from 8 am Thursday across the State. All the 63 counting centres will have at least 14 tables – seven for Assembly and seven for Lok Sabha seats, said the CEO.
“For each counting centre, a Counting Supervisor, a Counting Assistant and a Micro Observer will be appointed to ensure free and fair counting,” informed the CEO.
Kumar informed that so far received over 1 lakh postal ballots including service votes have been received this year compared to 31,326 postal ballots received during 2014 polls.
