Rajasthan assembly elections: Fate of 2,274 candidates to be decided today

JAIPUR: As the fate of 2,274 candidates will be decided on Tuesday,

counting

for the 199 assembly seats in Rajasthan will begin at 8 am. Around 20,000 employees will be on duty for the counting of votes for Rajasthan Assembly election.

There will be 25 companies of paramilitary force as a part of security arrangement across the state on the counting day. In Jaipur 1,500 police personnel including the paramilitary force will be deployed.

Out of the 35 counting centres in the state, Jaipur and

Jodhpur

will have two centres each. There will be just one centre in the rest of the 31 districts. The two counting centres in Jaipur will be in Rajasthan College and Commerce College.

In the current assembly, the BJP has 156 seats and the Congress 25. It is being touted as a direct fight between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in about 130 seats. In the other seats, BSP, Bharat Vahini Party, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party and the rebels who are contesting, may make the fight interesting against the official candidates of the Congress and BJP.

Rajasthan Chief Electoral Officer Anand Kumar said adequate security arrangements have been made in the vicinity of the counting centres. A three-tier security arrangement has been made at the counting centres to avoid any kind of interference, he said.

The process will begin with the counting of postal ballots followed by the EVMS. “For the first time the counting of postal ballots will be done through the Commission’s special software QR code scanner,” he said in a statement. Also, for the first time the counting will be displayed on 350 LED screens to be installed at various public places in the state. After each round of counting of votes in every assembly constituency, the trends will be uploaded directly on the Rajasthan election department’s website.

“To ensure complete fairness in the counting of votes, the mandatory verification method adopted by the Election Commission of India will also be executed. Through this method the number of votes obtained from the EVMs will be matched with the corresponding VVPAT slips,” said Kumar.