Election Commission to address press conference at 1.30 pm today
The counting votes in the Bihar assembly election will continue till late evening, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar, HR Srinivas, said on Tuesday. Around 4.10 crore votes were cast and 92 lakh votes have been counted so far, Srinivas told news agency ANI. He said the rounds of counting are now up from 26 to 35 rounds.
"Around 4.10 crore votes were cast, 92 lakh votes counted so far. Earlier there used to be 25-26 rounds of counting, this time it went up to around 35 rounds. So the counting will continue till late evening," the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar said.
He said there were fewer polling stations in some assembly Constituencies and that counting will conclude in 24-25 rounds. "But we also have some assembly constituencies where there will be 50-51 rounds. On average, we'll have 30-35 rounds of counting per constituency," he said.
Meanwhile, the counting of votes is underway for the three-phase Bihar assembly elections. Exit polls had predicted a victory for the RJD-led Grand Alliance. The crucial election will decide the electoral fate of over 3,700 candidates who are in the race to win the 243 seats of the state assembly. Counting started at 8 am at 55 centres spread across 38 districts amid tight security and precautions to avoid the spread of COVID-19 pandemic during the process.
Counting of votes is also going on for Madhya Pradesh bypolls held for 28 Assembly seats. The results will be an indicator of the effect of the Jyotiraditya Scindia factor in the changed political scenario in the state. The ruling BJP needs to win at least eight of these 28 seats to attain a simple majority in the 230-member Assembly, whose effective strength is 229. The BJP currently has 107 MLAs, while the Congress has 87 legislators in the House.
