Neeraj Rohmetra
Jammu, May 12: Fool proof arrangements have been put in place for counting of nearly 37 lakh votes, which have been polled across the State for the six Parliamentary seats and entire process will be strictly monitored by 18 General Election Observers and several micro observers. Three-tier security arrangements have been made at the 11 Counting Centres, which will unveil the fate of candidates on the Counting Day – May 16.
Sharing details of the elaborate counting arrangements, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Umang Narula told EXCELSIOR, “as per the ECI guidelines, all arrangements have been made for the Counting Day – May 16 and the process will be monitored by 18 General Observers and each of them will be accompanied by two Micro observers. Most of them will be reaching the State on May 14 and few others on the next day”.
Dwelling further over the monitoring process, the CEO said, “there will be four Observers in Udhampur, three in Jammu, six in Kashmir, two in Ladakh and three for the migrant centres. Even during the counting process, each table will have one Micro Observer to keep tab on the entire process”.
Another interesting initiative of the ECI, he said, “would be that the entire process of counting in all the Centres will be video graphed and this will be happening for the first time during Lok Sabha elections in the State”. All the counting halls have been provided to internet facility besides provision of videography of each counting hall has been put in place. CCTV cameras have already been installed for close surveillance of the activities in the venue.
Over the locations of the counting centres, Mr Narula said, “there will be counting centres in Jammu (two), Kathua, Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Leh, Kargil and one each for Kashmiri Migrants in Jammu, Udhampur and Delhi”. Stringent security arrangements have also been made outside each counting centre to ensure smooth counting of votes polled.
Another first during this counting process for Parliamentary polls, he stated, “there shall be separate Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) for the counting of postal ballot and there shall be separate tables for their counting”.
Referring to the Counting procedure, the CEO remarked, “as per ECI guidelines counting will be done in the presence of General Observers, AROs and political agents and after each round, the copy of results would also be provided to candidates. We expect more number of counting rounds as number of voters and numbers of polling booths have increased during these polls, when compared with the 2009 Parliamentary elections”.
It is pertinent to mention here that the just concluded Parliament elections in six seats of Jammu and Kashmir have recorded an increase of 11.7 present in the electorate turnout over 2009 Lok Sabha elections with 36.80 lakh out of a total of about 70 lakh electorates in the State exercising their right to franchise.
Referring to the Strong Rooms, where the polled Electronic Machines have been placed, the CEO said, “all the ECI instructions for ensuring strong security and sealing measures for the polled Electronic machines had been followed. The Strong Rooms are under security surveillance round the clock and all the DEOs have sent their respective certificates to the ECI stating that their instructions had been strictly adhered”, adding, “a consolidate report in this regard had been forwarded to the Commission.”
“The Returning Officers visit the storage campus every day in the morning and evening and check the log book and videography and sent a report to the DEO on the status”, he further elaborated.
Elaborating further over the procedure, Mr Narula said, “the Observers and the Returning Officer will sign the candidate wise results for that round after checking everything and ensure that the results of that round after checking everything and ensure that the results of that round of counting of votes are immediately displayed prominently on blackboard”, adding, “a photo copy of the round wise tabulation sheet, after it is verified and signed by the Returning officer and the Observer, should also be supplied to each candidate or his election agent in the counting hall”.
All the Returning Officers (ROs) and Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) have been directed to depute staff to facilitate transportation of EVMs from Strong Room to counting halls and tabulation staff for round wise evaluation of counting statistics in addition to Counting Supervisors and Counting Assistants. Separate colour coding for EVM carriers bearing the name of Assembly Constituencies will be adopted for easy identification.
Out of about 70 lakh electorates in Jammu and Kashmir, nearly 36.8 lakh cast their votes. Though the Kashmir Valley has more voters than Jammu region, the votes polled were nearly double in Jammu as compared to Kashmir.
On two Lok Sabha seats of Jammu region, about 23.48 lakh votes were polled while in three seats of Kashmir, only 12.17 lakh electorates used their right to franchise. In Ladakh region, which has one seat with only 1.6 lakh voters, about 1.14 lakh people cast their votes.
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