Bihar vote count likely to end late tonight, says Election Commission

Counting of votes for the Bihar assembly elections will take longer than usual and continue till late in the night because of 63 per cent increase in the number of EVMs, the Election Commission said on Monday.

Briefing reporters in the national capital as the counting progressed in Bihar, EC officials said over 1 crore votes were counted till around 1.30 pm out of nearly 4.16 crore votes polled in the three-phase elections.

The official said the counting has been "glitch-free" so far.

To ensure social distancing norms put in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Commission had increased the number of polling stations from nearly 65,000 in the 2015 assembly polls to 1.06 lakh. This meant an increase in the number of electronic voting machines as well.