Representational
All preparations are in place for Tuesday's counting of votes for elections to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram assemblies.
In MP and Chhattisgarh, counting of votes will take place for 230 and 90 assembly seats, respectively.
In Chhattisgarh counting centres have been set up in all the 27 district headquarters of the state. The counting will begin at 8 am. Postal ballots will be taken up first. Counting from electronic voting machines will start at 8:30 am.
Votes will be tallied for 119 assembly seats, in Telangana. At 43 locations, counting centres have been set up.
In Rajasthan, at 8 AM, counting will take place for 199 seats out of 200 assembly constituencies.
In Mizoram, counting will be held for 40 Assembly seats.
Hectic political parleys marked the eve of counting of votes for five state assemblies with the Congress asserting that the mandate from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram on Tuesday would send a "clear message" against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
State polls are being seen as semi-finals before the 2019 general polls,
Rejecting the exit-poll results, most of which have forecast gains for Congress in at least four states including a clear majority in Rajasthan, the BJP leaders said the final results should be awaited even as they sought to de-link the state polls from the next year's Lok Sabha elections.
On the other hand, opposition parties appeared emboldened with Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samta Party quitting the ruling NDA (National Democratic Alliance) to join their ranks on a day when a number of non-BJP parties came together on a single platform in what was seen as their show of strength.
In Telangana, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi met interim chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao to extend his support and said he was sure about the ruling TRS coming back to power, while the BJP also hinted at its possible support.
For Madhya Pradesh, senior Congress leader Kamal Nath exuded confidence that his party would get at least 140 seats to form a majority government.
Exit polls have mostly forecast a tight race between the ruling BJP and the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and neighbouring Chhattisgarh, while many of them have given a clear majority to the Congress against the ruling BJP in Rajasthan.
For Telangana, exit polls have been divided between the TRS and the Congress-led opposition alliance. Same is the case for Mizoram where the ruling Congress is being challenged by its arch-rival in the state, Mizo National Front, while the BJP is also separately in the fray.
Ahead of the results, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said people will give a "clear message" in form of results for the five assemblies and exuded confidence that the BJP would be ousted in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Over 8,500 candidates were in the fray in polls for these assemblies and their electoral fate is currently sealed in over 1.74 lakh EVMs, stored in over 670 strongrooms across the five states.
A total of 678 assembly seats across five states went for polls, after polling was countermanded in one seat in Rajasthan due to death of a candidate.
Tight security arrangements have been made for the counting, especially in Chhattisgarh where at least 12 assembly seats are in Naxal-affected areas. Besides, there have been allegations related to the electronic voting machines.
The BJP is trying for a fourth term in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is seeking to retain power in Rajasthan. The three states also played a significant role for the BJP in the 2014 general elections, when it had won 62 out of the 65 Lok Sabha seats in these three states.
In the multi-phase polling, Chhattisgarh voted on November 12 (18 seats) and November 20 (72 seats); Madhya Pradesh (230 seats) and Mizoram (40 seats) on November 28; and Rajasthan (199 seats) and Telangana (119 seats) on December 7.
In the maiden polls for the 119-seat Telangana assembly, 1821 candidates were in the fray and a voter turnout of 73.20 per cent was recorded.
Chhattisgarh recorded 76.60 per cent voter turnout, while the same for Madhya Pradesh was 75.05 per cent. Rajasthan recorded over 74 per cent voting, while it was nearly 80 per cent in Mizoram.
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(With inputs from agencies)
