Meghalaya Assembly elections: Counting of votes begins amid three-tier security

The counting of votes of the Meghalaya Assembly elections has begun across 13 counting centres across the state on ThursdayAccording to the Meghalaya Chief Electoral Officer CEO FR Kharkongor threetier security arrangements have been made with Central Armed Police Forces CAPF guarding the innermost layer and State Armed police will keep vigil over the second and third layersWe have 13 counting centres across the state 12 in all district headquarters one in Sohra Sub Division 22 CAPF companies have been retained for purposes of ensuring 24x7 safeguard protocols in respect of the strong rooms containing the polled Electronic Voting Machines EVM of 3419 polling stations in the 59 pollgoing Assembly Constituencies and will stay on till April 4 for any postpoll contingenciesexigencies Kharkongor saidThe counting centres are all placed under CCTV and webcast surveillance There will be a total of 383 rounds of counting with a maximum of nine rounds for the biggest assembly constituency Mawlai in East Khasi Hills District and four rounds for smaller ACs like Dalu in West Garo Hills District informed the CEOAlso Read Meghalaya records 8517 per cent voter turnout in assembly pollsThe counting in all 13 centres commenced at 8 am Initially the postal ballots are to be being counted for the first 30 minutes followed by the counting of polled votes in the EVM Control UnitsShillong has the States maximum number of 14 Counting Halls one each for each assembly constituencyWest Garo Hills District Counting Centre caters to 11 assembly constituencies and is the secondlargest counting centre in the stateElection Commission has deployed 27 Counting Observers and over 500 micro observers are assisting the Counting Observers at each tableEach table has a counting Observer assisted by four counting assistantsIn seven polling stations there were cases of nondeletion of mock poll data These include a polling station in East Jaintia Hills Khliehriat AC one in West Khasi Hills Rambhai AC two in East Garo hills Songsak AC two in South West Garo Hills Salmanpara ACs and one in Mylliem AC In the above polling stations District Electoral Officers DEO and ROs returning Officer have been directed to strictly follow Election Commission protocols on countingAlso post counting of EVMs five polling stations will be selected at random through a draw of lots and manual counting of five randomly selected EVMs will be undertaken as per ECI protocolsAdditionally concerned DEOs have issued necessary orders pertaining to traffic arrangements and victory processions postcounting in respect of their concerned districtsAhead of the counting of votes for Meghalaya assembly polls Meghalaya Chief Minister and National Peoples Party NPP chief Conrad Sangma met Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma in Guwahati on Tuesday night Notably Sarma is the convenor of the NorthEast Democratic Alliance NEDAA top source of NPP told ANI that both Chief Ministers took part in a crucial meeting in a hotel in Guwahati and the meeting lasted for half an hourFollowing the meeting the Meghalaya Chief Minister returned to Tura in West Garo HillsEarlier on Tuesday Meghalaya CM hinted at forming a postpoll alliance to form the governmentThe exit polls published by various media groups predicted that the northeastern state would have a hung house with Sangmas NPP emerging as the singlelargest partyFollowing this Conrad Sangma said that he would keep all options to form a stable governmentWe will keep all our options open to form a stable government We are happy to see the trend is in line as we expected to get more seats than we received last time said SangmaMeghalaya recorded a voting percentage of over 76 per cent on Monday Polling was held at 3419 polling stations across 59 Assembly constituencies in the stateOf the 60 Assembly constituencies in Meghalaya 36 constituencies fall in Khasi Jaintia Hills region while 24 are in Garo Hills regionHowever polling for the Sohiong Assembly constituency was postponed following the demise of the states former Home Minister and United Democratic Party UDP candidate from the seat HDR LyngdohThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever