Bihar: Less than 25% votes counted, counting to continue till late evening, says EC

New Delhi, Nov 10: The Election Commission of India (ECI) held a press conference to provide an update on the counting of votes for the Bihar Elections 2020. While trends have come in for the elections that show an NDA lead, there are many seats which are seeing a lead margin of merely 500-1,000 votes.

HR Srinivas, the chief electoral officer of Bihar, told ANI that 92 lakh votes have been counted so far. "Around 4.10 crore votes were cast," he adds. "Earlier there used to be 25-26 rounds of counting, this time it went up to around 35 rounds. So the counting will continue till late evening."

Due to the coronavirus crisis, the Election Commission has also capped the maximum number of voters per booth from a maximum of 1,500 to 1,000. This has led to an increase in the number of polling booths, from where votes are to be counted.

"We have many seats where we have to count 50 rounds. On average, each seat could have a counting of approximately 30-35 rounds. Over 4 crore and 10 lakh votes were cast and we have counted 95 lakh. Our counting will continue late into the evening," Bihar Chief Electoral Officer HR Srinivas has told news agency ANI.

As per the Election Commission, there has been a 63 percent increase in polling booths due to the coronavirus crisis. The number of locations on ground has also been increased to 55, it adds.

The commission says there has been glitch-free counting in Bihar and they expect to finish by late tonight.

Counting of votes is also taking more time this year than other years due to arrangements that have been made keeping the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in mind.

The Election Commission had earlier announced that the state had used over 1.06 lakh polling booths this year, marking an increase of about 63 percent compared to the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls.