The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : CEO repeats appeal to political parties

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

CEO repeats appeal to political parties

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, MAY 10. Even as the stage was set for Tuesday's counting of votes with final touches given to arrangements, the Chief Electoral Officer, M. Narayana Rao, this evening asked police and the district administration again to be alert with necessary steps to avert possible reprisals against groups of people and villages.

Talking to reporters, the CEO said these elections were keenly fought with rival political parties trading accusations and indulging in scuffles and violence as seen at various points of time during the election process, especially during the second phase of polling.

He said the atmosphere was surcharged with anxieties and expectations, and this was more so because of the predictions doing the rounds on the probable winners and losers. As soon as the trends came out indicating the winner and loser, rival party followers and agents might resort to unlawful assembly and charge on their targets which could be a habitation or groups of voters. The boothwise counting tomorrow would indicate as to who voted for which party and candidate. He asked the law enforcing authorities to be on vigil against anti-social elements also. Mr Rao, however, was hopeful that the day would be peaceful as there was better political awareness and maturity among parties, candidates and voters in general.

He said every Assembly segment would have 14 rounds on an average except Khairatabad, Visakhapatnam II, Pendurthi, Medchal and Malakpet which consisted of a large number of polling stations implying as many EVMs to be decodified. Khairatabad comprised nearly 500 booths and if votes were to be counted under a single roof, there would have been at least 40 rounds. But, the counting for such segments was being taken up in two halls, each having about 20 rounds. For Khairatabad, one hall would have 22 rounds.

The first round might take 30-45 minutes for any Assembly segment due to time taken for initial preparations but the subsequent ones would be of 15-20 minutes. The counting could be completed in four hours.

A saving grace under the EVMs was that there would not be any invalid votes. This would "save a lot of time", the CEO said. The Assembly seats with large number of candidates might suffer delay as the votes polled would have be marked against that many candidates out of each EVM. For excample, Asifnagar in Hyderabad had 16 candidates in fray, the largest under the present elections, and similar was the situation with Alampur.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh