Guwahati: Around 8,500 officials will be engaged for counting of votes May 4 for 126 Assam assembly constituencies that went to polls April 9, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Goel said Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference here, he said the Election Commission is fully geared up to conduct the counting process smoothly and in a transparent manner.
“We will have 40 counting centres spread across the 35 districts of Assam. Most of the districts have a single centre comprising all the constituencies in their jurisdictions,” Goel said.
Kokrajhar, Tinsukia and Jorhat will be having two counting centres each, while Nagaon will have three such facilities, he said.
“The EC has deployed 126 counting observers, who are senior IAS officers and will come from outside the state to maintain the neutrality of the process. We will also have 2,348 micro-observers, who are central government employees,” Goel said.
For the main counting work, a total of 5,981 people, mostly from the state government, will be engaged as counting officials, he said.
A record 85.96 per cent of Assam’s 2.51 crore electorate exercised their franchise across 126 seats April 9. This marked the highest voter turnout in the state’s history, surpassing the previous high of 84.67 per cent recorded in 2016.
Regarding the security arrangements, Goel said 25 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have been deployed across the state in the innermost cordon to guard the strong rooms, and they will also be stationed in the counting centres.
“In addition, we have 13 companies of state armed police stationed outside the strong rooms as the second cordon. We can say it with full confidence that the strong rooms have not been compromised,” he said, refuting allegations of security lapses in the EVM storage facilities by some opposition leaders.
On the counting day, 800 more unarmed police personnel will be available for the movement of EVMs from strong room locations to the counting centres.
“We will be having two additional companies of CAPF on static duty, while 93 companies of state armed police have already been deployed in the districts. We will also have the support of 85 Assault Groups (AGs) on the day of counting to deal with any untoward incident,” Goel said.
He also said that different agencies have seized various items, including liquor and cash, worth Rs 114.43 crore across the state from March 15 to April 27.
Voting for the Assam Legislative Assembly took place in a single phase April 9 across 31,490 polling stations.
There are a total of 722 candidates, including 59 women, in the fray.
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