Vote counting in halls at 12 centres today
CEO Rajesh Agrawal re-tells succl ss stor'y of assembly elections
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, March 09 2022: With all the arrangements made at 41 halls spread across 12 centres, counting of votes for all assembly constituencies that went to the polls in the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly elections will be held on Thursday.

The counting process will start at 8 am with the counting of postal ballots, said Manipur chief electoral officer (CEO) Rajesh Agrawal.

Addressing media persons at his Lamphelpat office, the CEO informed that after the counting of postal ballots, counting of votes in EVM will start at 8.30 am in all the 41 counting halls notified for the purpose.

The counting of 19 ACs will be taken up after completion of counting of first AC in the 19 counting halls where votes for two ACs are to be counted.

The DEOs and SPs in each district have been directed to make elaborate security arrangement for the counting including a minimum of three tier security comprising of CAPF and the state police, he said.

Apart from the returning officer concerned, the entire process of counting will also be supervised by the 41 general observers appointed by the Election Commission of India, one each for each Counting Hall.

The process of counting will also be webcast to the district control rooms and the State Control room at the CEO Office.

The trends and final results of the counting will be available in public domain on the Voter Helpline App and the website www.results.eci.gov.in.

Further, the results will also be displayed centrally at western gate of Kangla.

The results and updates will also be available at the media cell, Rajesh continued.

He informed that the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly election recorded turnout of over 89.3 per cent com pared to 79.5 per cent and 86.4 per cent registered in the 10th and 11th elections respectively.

Of the total 60 constituencies, 36 recorded 90 per cent or more turnout with Wangoi AC recording highest turnout of 94.8 per cent followed by Chandel (94.3%), Mayang Imphal (94.1%), Lamlai (93.7%), Tengnoupal (93.5%), Lamsang (93.4%), Hiyanglam (93.4%) and Heirok (93.1%).The turnout of female voters was as high as 90.5 per cent while male turnout was 87.9 per cent.

Overwhelming participation by PwD electors has been witnessed in the elections with over 90 per cent casting votes out of the total of 14,565 PwD electors, including 1235 of them exercising their franchise from the comfort of their respective homes through postal ballots.

Out of total 41,881 electors of 80 and above years, 7361 voted through postal ballots.

Interestingly, 95 per cent of the Centenarian voters exercised their franchise through postal ballots or at the polling stations, he maintained.

The active participation of electors in this election has truly made these elections a festival of democracy completely in tune with Commission's mandate of inclusive, accessible and participative election.

Transportation and wheelchair facilities were also made available to all the PwD and elderly electors while priority was given to PwD, 80-plus, transgender and lactating mothers.

Recounting that out of a total of 2968 polling stations, 604 were completely manned by all women personnel, he also stated that all the polling stations of Singjamei, Yaiskul, Wangkhei, Thoubal and Churachandpur assembly constituencies were completely manned by women teams, the highest percentage of all women booth in a state in the country.

There were 113 model polling stations spread across the state wherein Selhe booth and Photo Booth were also set up.

Extensive awareness on the importance of electoral participation resulted in a record voter turnout of 89.24 per cent as against 86.36 per cent in 2017.Targeted SVEEP interventions at 333 pre-identified polling stations with low voter turnout in 2017 Elections under Mission 300 was successful and resulted in massive increase in voter turnout in these polling stations with an average increase in voter turnout by more than 10 per cent in these elections.

A total of 4251 BUs, 4181 CUs and 4576 WPATs were commissioned for use in these elections.

A total of 47 ECIL engineers were also deployed to oversee the polling process through EVMs.

To ensure COVID safe election, adequate arrangements were made in all polling stations.

All polling stations were sanitised one day before poll.

Over 5936 ASHA and Anganwadi workers were utilised at all polling stations to perform thermal screening and queue management.

Two volunteers were also detailed for every polling station to assist the BLO and queue management.

Marking of circles with minimum distance was also done to avoid crowding.

Besides, mask, glove, were provided to voters requiring the same.

Adequate manpower and machineries were also put into place to oversee COVID-19 related arrangement and preventive measures during the entire election process.

There were 11 District RRT Teams and 60 AC level RRTs which have been deployed for attending to health-related exigencies.

Three helicopters including one ALH of Global Vectra and one MI17 of IAF were deployed for airlifting of casualties and polled EVMs and polling teams.

A total of 18 injured persons and four deceased were airlifted during the election period.

Cashless treatment was given to all the injured, security forces and other election machineries.

A total of 25 polling teams along with polled EVMs were airlifted in both the phases out of which 17 teams were airlifted from Tipaimukh AC and eight from Tamei AC.

Adequate emphasis was also laid on ensuring proper arrangements at the polling stations.

Voters set an example of COVID appropriate behaviour.

Besides, all the polling stations across the state were declared as no smoking zone.

The 12th Assembly Elections also witnessed record seizures worth Rs 170 crore as against about Rs 5 crore in 2017.A total cash of Rs 6.14 crore, Rs 143 crore worth drugs and narcotics, Rs 12 crore worth of gold and other precious metals and Rs 7.4 crore worth of other items and freebies were seized during the Elections-2022 by the enforcement agencies including police, Flying Squad, Income Tax and Excise.

Adequate preventive measures were also taken to ensure free, fair and secure voting by the voters.

The elections also witnessed a record deposition of licensed arms of 80.98 per cent as against 59.76 per cent in 2017.Besides, 7245 persons were bound down under CrPC in 2022 as against 1854 in 2017.Further, 3117 persons were also identified as trouble mongers as against 673 in 2017 .

Arrangements for web-casting/videography were successfully made in majority of the polling stations.

The voting at majority of the polling stations was monitored through webcasting at the control rooms in ROs, DEOs and CEO office.

Safe and secured atmosphere was created in the polling stations through deployment of over 300 Coys of CAPF over and above the state police.

A total of 763 Micro Observers were also employed to supervise the poll proceedings at the polling stations while 20 General observers, 11 Police observers and 20 Expenditure observers were deployed to oversee the polling process during the entire period of elections.

Besides, three Special observers were also deployed to oversee the overall arrangement.

The movement of EVMs was tracked with the help of e-Traccar App which was embedded in the mobile phones of Polling personnel and Sector Officers.

Besides, e-Atlas app was used by polling teams which enables a polling personnel to report any sort of EVM malfunctioning or any untoward incident happening in the polling station.

This enabled the returning officer to take immediate corrective actions.

The EVMs are now under safe custody at the respective strong rooms guarded under three tier security deployment.

All strong rooms are placed under 24x7 CCTV surveillance.

Separate TV Screens outside the strong rooms displaying the CCTV coverage are placed for constant monitoring by representatives of candidates, elaborated the CEO.

Rajesh Agrawal also expressed his gratitude to all stake holders especially the voters for their enthusiastic and fearless participation in the electoral process and reposing faith in the democratic set up.

He also thanked PwD, senior citizens, Transgender for their proactive participation in the electoral process.

He also recognised the relentless services of the entire electoral officials including polling officers, security personnel, ASHA, Anganwadi workers, supervisory staff, observers, special observers, enforcement agencies, state nodal officers, health authorities as also the air lifting teams of Indian Air Force and Global Vectra for making comprehensive arrangement and dedicatedly working towards successful conduct of free, fair and transparent and safe elections.

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