Agartala: Counting of votes for the 60-member Tripura assembly will commence at 8 am on March 2.
In the first phase, postal ballots will be opened for counting which will continue till 8.30 am, and in the next phase the EVMs will be opened for counting, Tripura Chief Electoral Officer Kiran Gitte said on Tuesday.
The senior official was speaking to media persons after an inspection visit to Umakanta Academy Strong room where counting for 14 assembly constituencies of West Tripura district is slated to be held.
“Counting centres have been set up in 21 locations across the state. All the Returning Officers have been giving final shape to the arrangements of the counting rooms,” he said.
“There are altogether 23 subdivisions and for each subdivision, one counting centre has been set up except for Mohanpur and Jirania subdivisions. These two subdivisions have been tagged with the Sadar district,” he said.
“There are two buildings in the Umakanta Academy School. The new building and the old building. The assembly constituencies have been distributed among these two infrastructures. In one building counting of nine seats will take place while the other five seats have been allocated,” the Chief Electoral Officer said.
On being asked about the other arrangements, he said, “Counting Observers will arrive here in Agartala on Tuesday. Each of the counting tables has been designed in such a way that one micro observer who will be a central government employee can supervise the counting. Counting Observers will take charge a day before the counting.”
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Apart from that, proper sitting arrangements have been done for counting agents, candidates and other stakeholders who are equally important for the process to conclude successfully.
Laying emphasis on the transparency of the counting process, CEO said in order to clear the doubts, five randomly selected VVPATs will also be opened to compare their count with the EVM results. “This way the political parties will get proof that the whole system is tamper-proof,” said the CEO.
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