In a bid to expedite the counting of postal ballots, the election commission has put 36 tables in place, where postal ballots will be counted first 30 minutes of the counting, in all five lok Sabha constituencies of the State.
Of these, seven tables have been laid in Tehri, eight in Garhwal, 10 each in Almora and Haridwar constituencies and only one in Nainital constituency. If postal ballots counting are not completed in first 30 minutes of the counting then it would continue along with EVM counting. If this continues, then last two phases of EVM counting will be kept on hold and returning officer will complete postal ballot counting; then last two phases of EVM counting would resume.
As per the election official figure 98,454 postal ballots were dispatched by the Chief Electoral office (CEO) of Uttarakhand. In which 84,972 postal ballots were dispatched to servicemen and remaining 13,482 postal ballots were dispatched for State Government employee, who were deployed on election duty, including 6,276 officials, 5,633 police personnel, 775 drivers and cleaners and 795 others.
According to CEO Radha Raturi, first postal ballots, whichever will be received till 8 am on May 16, will be counted first 30 minutes. If it would not complete then EVM counting would begin and if postal ballot counting would not complete then last two rounds of EVM counting will be kept on hold and postal ballot counting will be completed first. Thereafter EVM counting would resume.
ECI has sent 84,972 postal ballots to the servicemen, in which 16,934 postal ballots were delivered and 16,213 postal ballots returned undelivered till Thursday 6 pm. As per the detail 5,864 servicemen belong to Tehri lok Sabha seat; 5,055 in Garhwal, 2,627 in Haridwar, 2,460 in Nainital Udhamsingh nagar and 928 belong to Almora Parliamentary constituency.
Besides it, to ensure free and fair counting of EVM, Chief Electoral Office has made elaborate arrangements. 842 tables were laid to count 10,094 polling stations and will be counted in 904 rounds. For this they have installed 70 Close circuit television (CCTV) camera to monitor 70 assembly constituencies of the state, which spread in 13 districts.
Interestingly, results will be declared by the Returning Officer of Parliamentary constituency. It means Tehri lok Sabha constituency result will be declared by Dehradun Election officer Dr BVRC Purushottamm, while counting would happen in three districts i.e. Uttarakashi, Tehri and Dehradun; Haridwar DEO D Senthil Pandian will declare result of Haridwar lok Sabha constituency, but would counting would happen in two districts i.e. Haridwar and Dehradun; Pauri DEO Chandresh Yadav will declare result of Garhwal constituency while counting would happen in five districts i.e. Pauri, chamoli, Nainital, Tehri and Rudraprayag; Almora DEO Vinod Kumar Suman will declare result of Almora constituency while counting would happen in four districts i.e. Almora, Champawat, Pithoragarh and Bageshwar while Udhamsinghnagar DEO Pankaj Kumar Pandey will declare result of Nanital Udhamsinghnagar constituency but counting would happen in Nainital and Udhamsinghnagar districts.