Bhubaneswar: The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Odisha has made all arrangements for counting of votes polled in the elections for 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats held in four phases from May 13 to June 1.
The voting for 21 Parliamentary constituency seats and 147 Assembly constituency seats was held in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1, 2024.
CEO Nikunja Bihari Dhal said the counting of votes for 21 Parliamentary constituency seats and 147 Assembly constituency seats will be taken up at 70 counting centers across the state.
He said that while in 69 counting centers, both the EVM and postal ballots will be counted, in the Chhatrapur counting center, only the counting of postal ballots will be taken up.
CEO said the 2024 elections saw a rise in the percentage of voter turnout compared to the 2019 General Elections. In the 2019 elections, about 73.09 percent of voters had exercised their franchise, while in the 2024 elections, the voter turnout was 74.44 percent.
Shri Dhal further said about 2.5 crore votes will be counted for both the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats from 64,000 control units. He said the 1,47,000 postal ballots would be counted first, followed by the counting of EVM votes.
He said 517 Assistant Returning Officers (ARO) will be deployed for 21 Parliamentary constituencies, while 712 AROs will be deployed for 147 Assembly constituencies.
For EVM counting, 1,799 tables will be used for the Assembly elections and 1,790 tables for the Lok Sabha elections.
The CEO said there would be less than 30 rounds of counting in 139 Assembly seats, while for the remaining eight Assembly seats, there will be more than 30 rounds of counting.
The eight assembly constituencies where the counting process may take more time, those are—Rairangpur, Saraskana, Aul, Chitrakunda, Patkura, Bissamcuttack, Loisingha and Mohana, Shri Dhal said.
He said the ECI has appointed 124 observers to supervise the counting. Additional 89 companies of CAPF would be deployed until June 6 to check for any post-poll violence in the State.
Shri Dhal said a dedicated firefighting unit and power backup system will be provided at each counting center, and public display of the counting will be arranged outside the counting centers.
According to ADG Law and Order Sanjaya Kumar, official sources said about 60 companies of CAPF, besides 218 platoons of State Armed Police Forces, would be deployed for the counting.
The EVMs after polling have been kept in EVM-strong rooms at 69 locations spread across 34 police districts in the state. A two-tier security arrangement has been made for each strong room. In the first layer, one platoon of CAPF personnel has been deployed in the inner cordon while one platoon of the State Armed Force has been deployed in the outer cordon.
Personnel from the district police have also been deployed at the periphery of the EVM strong room.