Preparation four counting in place: CEO Raturi

DAINIK NATION BUREAU

Counting of votes in all the 70 seats of Uttarakhand Assembly election would be held at 15 places across the state on Saturday, said Uttarakhand chief electoral officer Radha Raturi on Friday. She said that all preparations related to counting of votes have been completed. “In all, 15 counting venues have been fixed across 13 districts of the state. Counting for Uttarkashi district would be held at Government Kriti Inter College while   the counting for Chamoli district would take place at Government Girls Inter College in Gopeshwar. Multipurpose Sports building at Agastyamuni has been taken up for counting for  Rudraprayag district while  Government ITI Building, New Tehri  is the  venue where the counting would be held  for Tehri district. For Dehradun, it is the Maharana Pratap Sports College in Raipur while for Haridwar, two counting venues- Collectorate building, Roshnabad and Vikas Bhawan, Roshnabad have been taken up.  The counting venue for Pauri is the Government Inter College in Pauri town while it is at Government Post Graduation College at Pithoragarh where the counting for Pithoragarh district would be held. Pandit Badridutt Pandey PG College in Bageshwar is the counting venue  for  Bageshwar district while  Government Hotel Management and Catering Institute, Chilkapita, Almora  has been taken up for the counting for  Almora district. For Champawat district, there are   two counting venues- Van Panchayat Hall and Rain Basera in Champawat.  MBP Girls College in Haldwani is where the counting for Nainital district would be held while it is Nyu Mandi Samiti office in Rudrapur where the counting for Udham Singh Nagar district would be held,” she said.

Raturi further said that 864 counting tables have been installed for all the 70 seats where the counting of the polled EVMs, brought from 10, 854 polling centres, will be held to decide the fate of 637 candidates.

She said that all the district magistrates and district senior superintendents of police have been directed to ensure peaceful counting of votes at the above-mentioned venues in tune with the Election Commission’s directive.

State police nodal officer IG Deepam Seth said that adequate police forces have been deputed at all the counting venues.  Ten companies of Central Armed Police Forces, 14 companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary, 3000 constables, 350 head constables, 550 sub-inspectors, 50 inspectors and 30 gazetted police officers have been deputed on the counting duties, he added.