The electoral fortunes of Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy, who is locked in a tight contest with Om Sakthi Sekar of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the Nellithope by-election, will be out in the open by 10 a.m. today.
All arrangements are in place for the counting of votes at the Bharatidasan Government College for Women here. The counting of votes would begin at 8 a.m. and it is expected that the trend would be known by 9 a.m. The result would be out by around 10 a.m.
A team of election officials, led by Chief Electoral Officer V. Candavelou and District Election Officer and District Collector Satyendra Singh Dursawat, inspected the arrangements at the counting centre on Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT
The electronic voting machines kept inside the strongroom would be moved to the counting tables around 7.30 a..m. The counting room would have three tables. Postal votes would be counted at the Returning Officers’ table at 8 a.m. and counting of the electronic voting machines would begin immediately after counting the three postal votes in the constituency.
Special arrangements have been made for disseminating details of counting to the public. Details of the leads of candidates would be posted live on the website ceopuducherry.py.gov.in
In the by-poll held on November 19, a record number of people, largely women, turned up to exercise their franchise.
ADVERTISEMENT
The constituency witnessed a record 85. 76 per cent voter turnout, surpassing the polling percentage of 85.44 recorded in the 2016 Assembly elections. Nellithope has an electorate of 31,366 comprising 16, 418 women and 14,939 men, besides five NRI and four service votes.
According to statistics available with the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, of the 16,418 women voters in the constituency, 14, 344 women had cast their votes as against 12,551 men out of 14,939. A three-tier security arrangement is in place at the counting centre to ensure peaceful counting of votes. Since the EVMs were shifted to the centre after the polling day, the counting station had been under the control of territorial police and paramilitary personnel.
The traffic police have imposed restrictions on movement of vehicles along the stretch from Muthialpet to Ajantha signal till the counting was over.