The Election Commission of India (ECI) has made elaborate security arrangements for the counting of votes on Tuesday for seven Assembly bypolls where polling was held on November 3.
An estimated 53.62 percent of the 24.34 lakh electorate exercised their franchise in these bypolls to seal the fate of 88 candidates in the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
An exit poll has predicted that the BJP is expected to bag five to six of the seven assembly seats in UP while the Samajwadi Party is expected to win one to two seats and the BSP zero to one.
The BJP had held six of these seven Assembly seats while one seat was held by the SP.
This was the first time that the BSP contested the bypolls, making the contest multi-cornered. According to the exit polls, the BJP is expected to get 37 percent of the votes and the main opposition SP is likely to get 27 percent votes.
While BSP is expected to get around 20 percent votes, the Congress which also claims to be a stakeholder in these poll could get just 8 percent of the votes.
The ECI sources here on Monday said that the counting of votes would be taken up from 8 am on Tuesday at all the seven Assembly constituencies under elaborate security arrangements. Central Para Military Forces have been deployed at all the seven counting centres.
In each of the seven Assembly constituencies, 15 tables have been set up for counting of the voter, one booth at each table. This time, a maximum of 1,000 votes were polled in one booth due to COVID-19 pandemic, due to which the number of booths has increased and it will take more time in counting.
“The trends are expected to come within one hour of the counting and results are expected by late afternoon,” officials said.
A four-cornered contest was witnessed in all the constituencies between the ruling BJP, the SP, the BSP and the Congress.
This time the polling percentage was low by 10 percent in comparison to 2017 assembly polls.