‘Hope to Finish Counting Late Tonight’: EC on Bihar Elections

“Slightly more than 1 crore votes have been counted, which means that there’s significant ground to be covered yet.”

2020 Bihar Election Results, Election Commission Press Conference. 

(Photo: The Quint)

As the counting for the Bihar Assembly elections is underway, with trends showing a neck-and-neck contest between the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan, the Election Commission, in a press conference, said it hopes to finish the counting procedure late on Tuesday, 10 November.

"We hope to finish counting as per the procedure late tonight," said Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar at the briefing.

At another briefing later in the day, EC officials said that the counting was going smoothly, reiterating that the results would only be available later on Tuesday night – some early and some late in the night.

At the briefing in the afternoon, had Kumar pointed that the number of counting tables at each counting station has been limited due to physical distancing protocols, adding that the number of locations have gone up so that the process continues smoothly.

The counting will take extra time due to 63 percent more EVMs than in the 2015 Bihar polls, as COVID-19 protocol necessitated additional polling booths, the poll body said.

“Needless to say that there has been an absolutely glitch-free counting process so far. Slightly more than 1 crore votes have been counted in Bihar, which means that there is significant ground to be covered yet.”

Ashish Kundra, EC official

While trends that have come in for the elections show an NDA lead, there are many seats which are seeing a lead margin of merely 500-1,000 votes.

Counting of votes is taking more time this year than other years due to arrangements that have been made keeping the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in mind.