Goa: Election machinery ready for votes' counting

Panaji, June 4: The electoral fortunes of the 202 candidates, who contested polls for the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly, would be known before noon tomorrow, with the state election machinery geared for counting of votes.

As many as 68.79 per cent of the 1.1 million-odd voters exercised their franchise in the June 2 polls, in which Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane, his cabinet colleagues, Deputy Chie Minister Dr Wilfred De Souza and the opposition leader Manohar Parrikar cast their ballots.

The BJP contested the highest number of 33 seats followed by the Congress 32, the oldest Maharshtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) 26, Save Goa Front (SGF) 17, JD (S) and UGDP 11 each, Shiv Sena 7, Nationalist Congress Party 6, Communist Party of India (CPI) 3, CPI (Marxist) 1, RPI(A) 4, GSP 1 and Independents 50.

There are 19 Assembly constituencies in the North Goa district and 21 Assembly Constituencies in the South Goa district.

Counting for 11 Assembly constituencies (1 to 9 and 18, 19) will be held at the Goa Pharmacy College and ounting for the remaining 8 constituencies (10 to 14 and 15 to 17) will be held at the Bal Bhawan, both located in the capital.

Counting for 21 Assembly constituencies of South Goa will be held at the Multipurpose Complex, which includes both the school building and the ITI building, Borda, Margao.

The data management teams, formed at the Returning Officers level, have conducted dummy result testing to prepare for online transmission of the results to the Election Commission through the Genesys software on the counting day.

In fact, Goa was the first state in which the Election Commission in the 1999 Assembly elections had used this software. The data management teams will assist the respective Returning Officers in the transmission of the results, according to the authorities here.

The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer expects that all results will be out by 1100 hrs. The results will be also available to the public online through Election Commission's website, www.eci.gov.in

The authorities warned the media against coverage of the actual counting inside the counting hall.

''The media taking audio visual coverage of the counting process with camera carried in hand or on shoulders are advised that under no circumstances, the actual votes recorded on each EVM is photographed or covered by audio visual coverage, even by accident,'' it said.

The Election Commission has also prohibited use of mobile phones inside the counting halls, except by authorised personnel.

UNI