LS vote counting: Officials-staff given training

Mangaluru/Udupi: Close to a month has passed since the Lok Sabha elections were held in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. With only a week remaining for the counting of votes, all preparations have started.

The votes of 8 Legislative Assemblies of Dakshina Kannada district will be counted at NITK premises in Suathkal. The votes of the Assemblies within Udupi-Chikkamagaluru Lok Sabha constituency will be counted at the counting centre at St Cecilys School near Brahmagiri in Udupi city. Training in connection to the counting of votes have been conducted and was provided by state level trainers. This time, more number of EVM will be compared with VVPATs and hence, importance has been given to this during the training.

The calculations on who might win have also begun. For the first time, vote counting of DK constituency is being held outside the city limits.  In 2009, the counting was held at Canara College premises. The high vehicular density observed there then, the counting of 2014 was shifted to Mahatma Gandhi Composite PU College at Bondel.

The strong room at Udupi’s St Cecilys school is guarded by CRPF and the local police. The Deputy Commissioner, SP and senior police officials are conducting daily inspection. Training regarding the counting of votes and meeting on police protection have already been conducted.

Even more security

“With the day for vote counting drawing closer, it has been decided to provide even more security to the vote counting centres,” informed Sasikanth Senthil S, Deputy Commissioner, DK

Training for DC too

Special training was provided to DC Senthil and ADC Venkatachalapathy in Bengaluru in connection to the counting of votes. Both of them had left to Bengaluru on Tuesday for the training. A day long training was conducted in Bengaluru regarding the counting of votes for all district election officers in the state.