The poll results will be out on Thursday in Jatland-Haryana, which witnessed a multi-cornered ballot battle in 90-member State Assembly.
The polling held on October 21 had witnessed lowest ever voter turnout of 68.31 per cent in last three decades in Haryana. Re-polling was held at five polling stations in five Assembly constituencies each in the state on Tuesday.
While most exit polls have projected a comfortable victory for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, one has predicted a close fight between the BJP and Congress with the Jannayak Janta Party likely to play kingmaker.
“The counting of votes will begin at 8 am. The electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the VVPAT paper trail machines used in Monday’s polling are kept at 90 strongrooms set up at 59 different locations in the state,” said an official of Election Commission.
A counting centre has been set up in each of the 90 Assembly constituencies and there is an additional centre in Gurgaon’s Badshahpur segment, which had a larger number of polling booths.
“Elaborate security arrangements have been made for safe custody of the EVMs and VVPAT machines at designated strong rooms where personnel of State Police and Paramilitary forces are guarding the rooms round the clock, the EC official said.
Led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the BJP had set a target of winning 75 seats in the State, where the Congress is struggling to make a comeback. Several opinion polls have predicted that the ruling BJP will return to power with a brute majority by winning more than 65 seats out of 90 seats.
This time, Haryana recorded a low voter turnout of 68.31 per cent, a sharp decline from 76.54 in the 2014 Assembly polls. Of the total voters exercising their right to franchise, 69.36 per cent were men and 67.12 per cent women.
Altogether, 1,169 candidates, including 105 women, entered the fray this time.
A total of 1.83 crore voters including 98.78 lakh males, 85.12 lakh females and 252 transgenders were eligible to vote in the polls.
In the 2014 Assembly polls, the BJP had improved its 2009 tally of four to 47 (33.2 per cent vote share), followed by the INLD with 19 (24.11 per cent) legislators and the Congress coming third with 15 (20.58 per cent) seats against 40 in 2009 (35 per cent).
This time, the political parties in the fray were BJP, Congress, Indian National Lok Dal-Shiromani Akali Dal alliance, JJP, Aam Aadmi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) and Swaraj India.
The BJP, which is predicted by exit polls to retain power in the state, seems to have reaped benefits by playing up the nationalist issues besides being helped by factionalism in Congress and division of INLD. After INLD split, the JJP came into existence last year.
The saffron party had made the nullification of Article 370 and nationalism a major poll issues while the Congress and other opposition parties had targeted the BJP Government over unemployment, law and order and the condition of farmers in Haryana.
Political observers say that the BJP had an advantage over other political parties after its victory on all the 10 Lok Sabha seats just a few months back in Lok Sabha polls, that too with handsome margins.
Also, BJP was far ahead of its arch-rival –Congress- as far as campaigning at the grassroots level was concerned. While the entire BJP leadership toiled hard to strengthen its cadre at grassroots, the Congress which faced deep leadership crisis in the state kicked off its campaign too late, they say.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, party's working President JP Nadda among other senior party leaders had held rallies in Haryana.
Prominent among those whose fate will be known on Thursday include Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, former Congress CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, JJP leader Dushyant Chautala and INLD's senior leader Abhay Singh Chautala.
Haryana Ministers Ram Bilas Sharma, Anil Vij, Capt Abhimanyu, O P Dhankar, Kavita Jain, Krishan Bedi, Manish Grover among others also contested for the BJP. The BJP also fielded TikTok star Sonali Phogat and three sportspersons -- Babita Phogat, Yogeshwar Dutt and Sandeep Singh.
Congress bigwigs in the fray were Randeep Singh Surjewala, Kiran Choudhary, Ranbir Mahendra and Kuldeep Bishnoi.