MARGAO
State Election Commissioner, W V Ramanamurthy on Saturday inspected the counting arrangements being put in place in the South Goa Collectorate for the counting of votes of the Cuncolim Municipal Council scheduled on Monday, indicating there isn’t going to be any change in the election schedule fixed by the State Election Commission.
Given that the counting schedule remains unchanged, Returning Officer for the elections to the Cuncolim Municipal Council and the Navelim ZP by-poll, informed that the counting process will start at 7.30 on Monday with the opening of the strong room on the ground floor of the Collectorate building.
Exactly at 8 am, the ballots containing the votes polled for the Cuncolim civic body will be opened for counting, with officials exuding confidence that the result should be out within two hours, by 10 am.
After the CMC votes are counted and the results declared, the Returning Officer will take up the Navelim ZP by-poll votes for counting.
Sources in the know say that the State Election Commissioner would have issued some directions to the election officials if there was any plan in the offing to postpone the counting on Monday and take it up simultaneously along with the remaining five councils.
“Ramanamurthy supervised the arrangements being put in place on the ground floor of the South Collectorate building for the counting of votes on Monday. If there was any change, the SEC would have issued instructions to keep the arrangements on hold,” remarked an official.
The election officials have set up barricades and tables on the ground floor of the Collectorate building for the counting of votes of the Cuncolim Municipal election and the Navelim ZP by-poll.
The Goa Forward party and the petitioners, who had challenged the ward reservations, had petitioned to the new State Election Commissioner on Friday to take up counting of votes of all the Municipal bodies together so that the result does not influence the Municipal polls scheduled in the second phase.
