Bhubaneswar: The result of the recently conducted election to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) will be declared Saturday.
The State Election Commission (SEC) has made elaborate arrangements for the counting of votes of the poll, which were taken March 24.
Briefing media here Friday, SEC Secretary RN Sahu said the counting will start at 8 am in all 109 ULBs, excluding Dhamnagar NAC, and continue till all votes are counted.
There will be two tables for counting of votes for councilor and chairperson posts in NACs while a maximum of five tables will be there for councilor and chairperson posts in municipalities, he said.
Similarly, the counting of votes will be conducted simultaneously at 12 tables each for councilor and mayor posts in the municipal corporations, Sahu said.
“To ensure transparency, we have decided to provide one counting supervisor and one counting assistant for each table. There will be Group D staff to assist the teams in transporting EVMs to the counting tables,” the Secretary said.
He further informed that first the votes of the polling officials, who exercised their voting rights through election duty certificate, will be counted and subsequently the counting of votes in EVMs will begin.
Ward-wise results will be announced at the counting centre, he added. The entire counting process will be recorded through CCTV cameras.
Twin City police commissioner Saumendra Priyadarsi said that a three-tier security arrangement has been made for the counting of votes in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Jatni and Choudwar.
A day before the counting, all parties have made their claims to their stake in the civic body polls.
“As the educated voters in the urban areas have mostly voted in favour of BJP, we are confident that we will win more seats than the last time. As per my estimate, we will win around 30-35 ULBs,” said senior BJP MLA Bishnu Sethi.
Congress MLA Sura Routray has predicted that his party would be able to form councils in 17 ULBs.
Alleging that the ruling party is buying votes by splurging money, Routray said his party will secure second position in the election and form councils in Jatni and Cuttack.
The BJP will remain in third position in this poll, he added. On the other hand, ruling BJD said the result will be more or less in line with the Panchayat poll, where BJD was able to form councils in all 30 districts of the state.
“Our party will win around 95 per cent seats in the urban election,” claimed BJD leader Raj Kishore Das.
PNN