All set for counting, 21 centres set up: CEO

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 21

The votes of 13 Lok Sabha seats will be counted on Thursday at 21 locations in the state, Chief Electoral Officer S Karuna Raju said. He said all necessary arrangements had been made for counting of votes.

“The counting of votes will be held at 21 different locations and the process will begin at 8 am,” Raju said.

The state had recorded a voter turnout of 65.96 per cent, almost 5 per cent lower than the turnout in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Of the total 2.07 crore voters, 1.37 crore have sealed the fate of 278 candidates in Punjab. Barring stray incidents of clashes on Sunday, polling in remained peaceful in the state.

Of total 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur will be the first to indicate their results on Thursday, said Raju.

“The result for both the constituencies might be officially declared by 6 pm, however, the indication of a possible winner will be out by 1 pm,” Raju added.

The CEO said: “Hoshiarpur had only eight and Gurdaspur had 15 candidates in the fray. One ballot VVPAT had the capability to assess the data of 16 candidates. So, all candidates of these two constituencies can be accommodated on a single machine. However, other constituencies will take two turns as these had more candidates. Counting for these two seats can easily be finished by 1 pm, indicating the possible results.”

“The final result of all 13 constituencies is expected by 10 pm,” he added.

The number of candidates in other constituencies: Amritsar (30), Khadoor Sahib (19), Jalandhar (19), Anandpur Sahib (26), Ludhiana (22), Fatehgarg Sahib (20), Faridkot (20), Ferozepur (22), Bathinda (27), Sangrur (25), and Patiala (25).