Just a few days ago, the world watched with bated breath the results of the US elections 2020. It was a few sleepless nights until the results were declared. A similar trend is noticed in Bihar, as the counting in this election has been much slower than usual.
The Election Commission (EC), in a press conference on Tuesday, 10 November, said that it hopes to finish counting as per the procedure late tonight.
Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the pace at which the counting of votes is taking place has been slow, and Bihar is the first state to vote during COVID-19.
This has led the EC to increase the number of polling booths in Bihar to almost double in order to abide by the rules of physical distancing and other protocols. So lesser number of rounds have been counted in each seat than is usually the case at this point of time on the result day.
The most number of voters per booth has been capped from a maximum of 1,500 to 1,000. The number of polling stations were raised from 72,723 to 1,06,515, marking an increase of about 63 per cent compared to the 2015 Assembly polls, the EC reported. Earlier there used to be 25-26 rounds of counting, which has gone up to around 35 rounds.
Around 4.10 crore votes were cast and 92 lakh votes have been counted till 1.15 pm, said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar, HR Srinivas.
Trends at 12.15 pm show a clear lead for the NDA, but the Opposition is still hoping to succeed, considering the peculiarity of counting in this election.
Many political parties have refrained from commenting on the trends or result, as the counting is expected to go on for a much longer time.
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