The anxious wait for the result of a high-stakes political battle between the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front in Puthuppally is soon set to be over.
Counting of votes polled in the Assembly byelection on September 5 will begin at the Baselius College auditorium here at 8 a.m. on Friday.
The counting will be held on 20 tables — 14 tables for electronic voting machines, five for postal votes and one for service votes polled through the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS). The process will begin with the counting of the postal votes, followed by the service votes. The votes in the EVMs will be counted in 13 rounds, commencing from Ayarkkunnam grama panchayat. After the votes polled in Ayarkunnam are counted in the first two rounds, votes polled in Akalakunnam, Kooroppada, Manarcaud, Pampady, Puthuppally, Meenadom and Vakathanam grama panchayats will be counted. Following this, five Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) units will be randomly selected for counting the slips.
Results
The result will be available on the Election Commission’s website https://results.eci.gov.in from 8 a.m. The results can be accessed through the Election Commission’s Voter Helpline mobile app too. The mobile app is available on Google Play Store and Apple Store. The results will also be available on Election Commission’s web application Result Trend TV (https://eci.gov.in/it-applications/web-applications/results-trends-tv-r43/).
The drop in the overall voter turnout has left all three major fronts baffled. The UDF, however, is confident of winning by a margin of 30,000 votes or above even as the LDF is hopeful of an improbable victory by a wafer-thin margin. The National Democratic Alliance, meanwhile, is confident of increasing its share of votes.
Though the outcome will not have much of an impact on the current political scenario in Kerala, the result is expected to have a bearing on the poll-preparedness of the three coalitions for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
