Lok Sabha 2019: Vote counting today

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, May 22: The counting of votes for Lok Sabha elections 2019 will be held across the country today. It will begin at 8 am but the final results are likely to be delayed by four hours this time due to introduction of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) counting.

The counting of votes for Assembly elections in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim will also be held on Thursday.

The general elections were held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 for 542 parliamentary seats spread across 29 states and seven union territories. Election in 8-Vellore parliamentary constituency (Tamil Nadu) was rescinded after Income Tax raids unearthed systematic design to influence voters.

Access real-time trends, results

The Election Commission of India has come up with a new IT-based initiative to enable the public to access real-time trends and results of the vote counting across the States/UTs via its website https://results.eci.gov.in starting from 8 am on Thursday. Android and iOS phone users can access winning/leading or trailing candidate details, along with the constituency-wise or State-wise results on ECI’s Voter Helpline App, which is available for download on Google Play Store or Apple Play Store.

“The citizens can bookmark their favourite candidate and watch the real-time results, as per their convenience on the Voter Helpline App or make a wish list to track the real-time status,” read a statement from ECI.

Nagaland ready for counting day

CEO Nagaland, Abhijit Sinha has informed in a statement that all arrangements are in place for counting of votes which will commence at 8 am in 13 locations across the state.

The CEO said that “all the districts are fully geared up and ready for counting the votes for the general election to Lok Sabha 2019 from Nagaland Parliamentary Constituency and for the by-election to 26-Aonglenden (ST) AC.”

He added “all the 21 Observers, deployed by the Commission, have reached their respective locations and reviewed the counting arrangements and are satisfied that everything is in order.”

The CEO said that regular updates of the counting trends will be made available to the public on its website ceonagaland.nic.in, and social media sites – nagalandceo (Facebook), ceonagaland.itcell (Instagram), ceonagaland (Twitter) and CEO election Nagaland (YouTube), besides the official site of ECI. He went on to say that “media personnel will get regular updates on the counting trends” in all the counting centres across the state and “result of live counting of the trends will also be shown through a projector at Old NST area in Kohima.”

Centre alerts states

The Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday alerted the state Chief Secretaries and Directors General of Police regarding possibility of eruption of violence in different parts of the country in connection with the counting of votes today.

MHA has asked the states and UTs to maintain law and order, peace and public tranquillity; and to take adequate measures for the security of strong rooms and venues of counting of votes. It said in a statement that the alert was issued in the wake of calls given and statements made in various quarters for inciting violence and causing disruption on the day of counting of votes.