As the state eagerly awaits the results of the 12th Manipur Assembly election that ended with a 89.3 per cent voter turnout, the Election Commission is all set to conduct the counting of votes on March 10 at 41 counting halls that are spread over 12 counting centres across the state, Manipur CEO Rajesh Agrawal said on Wednesday.
"The active participation of electors in this election has truly made these elections a festival of democracy completely in tune with the commission’s mandate of inclusive, accessible and participative election," Agrawal said while briefing mediapersons at the state CEO office in Imphal Wednesday.
Now, the election results will decide the fate of 265 candidates, who contested in the 60 assembly constituencies in 16 districts of the state, which was conducted in two phases on February 28 and March 5 and two repoll that was conducted on March 5 and March 8.
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Agrawal said the counting process will start from 8 am, with the counting of postal ballots. It will be succeeded by counting of votes polled in EVM from 8.30 am onwards in all the 41 counting halls notified for the purpose, he added.
In the first round, the counting of 41 ACs will be taken up in the 41 counting halls and the counting of remaining 19 ACs will be taken up after the completion of counting of first 41 ACs, the CEO said.
To prevent any untoward incident, Agrawal said the district election officers (DEOs) and superintendent of police (SP) in each district have been directed to make elaborate security arrangements for counting, deploying a minimum of three-tier security comprising the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and the Manipur Police.
The entire process of counting in addition to the ROs will also be supervised by the 41 general observers appointed by the ECI (one each for each counting hall), he said. The process of counting will also be webcast to the district control rooms and also the state control room at the CEO, Manipur office, he added.
The CEO said the trends and final results of the counting will be available in public domain on the Voter Helpline App and on the website "www.results.eci.gov.in".
The results will also be displayed centrally at western gate of Kangla, he said, adding the results and updates will also be available to press from the media cell at the CEO office.
Highlighting the data on the outcome of the ensuing election, he said that the overwhelming participation by PwD electors have been witnessed with over 90 per cent turnout of a total of 14,565 PwD electors.
Interestingly, 95 per cent of the centenarian voters exercised their franchise through postal ballots or at the polling stations, he said.
The targeted SVEEP interventions at 333 pre-identified polling stations with low voter turnout in 2017 Elections under Mission 300 was overwhelmingly successful and has resulted in massive increase in voter turnout in these polling stations with an average increase in voter turnout by more than 10 per cent in these elections, he said.
The CEO also expressed his gratitude to all stakeholders especially the voters for their enthusiastic and fearless participation in the electoral process and repose faith in the democratic set up.
The commission also recognises the relentless services of the entire electoral officials, including polling officers, security personnel, ASHA, anganwadi workers, supervisory staff, observers, special observers, enforcement agencies, state nodal officers, health authorities as also the air lifting teams of Indian Air Force and Global Vectra for making comprehensive arrangement and dedicatedly working towards successful conduct of free, fair and transparent and safe elections, he added.
