Third eye will monitor from end to end the process of counting votes in Punjab on Thursday — March 10. For, the state’s election authorities will video-graph the entire process — right from opening of the strong rooms to the counting of the last vote — to maintain the transparency of the entire procedure.
With the Election Commission of India providing continuous training to the counting staff considering the procedure to be “highly technical”, the office of Punjab’s Chief Electoral Officer on Tuesday conducted a dry run regarding how the data will be entered round wise.
For the purpose of counting for 117 assembly constituencies, the same number of counting centres has been set up at 66 locations. The general observers, deputed by the ECI, will supervise the entire counting process that will begin at 8 am on March 10 (Thursday).
“The counting of votes will start at 8 am at all counting centres on March 10, which will be held under the supervision of general observers. Even the opening of the strong rooms, where the EVMs (electronic voting machines) have been kept safe after February 20 polling, will be opened as per due procedure and will be videographed to ensure the transparency, and at the same time, all effort will be made to ensure that secrecy of data will also be maintained,” a senior election official told The Pioneer.
The election official said that the area around counting centres would be declared a pedestrian zone. “It will be entirely pedestrian zones with no vehicle allowed inside the premises where counting centres have been set up. Be it any candidate, or anyone, everyone has to walk,” said the official, adding that the Sub-Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) will oversee the law and order.
Despite several complaints received against the security of strong rooms, the state election authorities claimed that all the strong rooms and EVMs were safe and secured as per the ECI’s standard procedure and protocol. “The Chief Electoral Officer has himself inspected all the strong rooms, its security, and even cleared the apprehensions and addressed the complaints of the candidates and parties,” added the official.
As per ECI guidelines, the EVMs were kept secured in the strong rooms under three layers of security with central armed and para forces forming the first layer, state armed police in second layers, and the district police forming the third layer. Apart from that, the strong rooms have CCTV cameras coverage, with the candidates’ representatives also provided with the live feed.