Over 25,000 polling staff to be deployed at 55 counting centres in Bengal

The stage is set for counting of votes on Tuesday for 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, an election official said.

Counting will start from 8 am amid tight security. The trends are expected around 9 am, the official added.

Over 25,000 polling staff, including observers and micro observers, will be deployed by the Election Commission for the counting process, which will take place at 55 centres across the state.

The EC has arranged a three-tier security measure outside every counting centre, with 92 companies of central forces along with 2,525 personnel of state police.

The first level of security will consist of constables and ASI-ranked policemen, the second level will have armed state policemen, and the central forces will be present at the innermost circle surrounding the counting centres.
 

Section 144 will be enforced up to 200 metres around each counting centre, and only one observer per assembly will be allowed inside each counting centre, the official added.

The poll body has set up 394 strongrooms, 55 counting centres, 418 counting halls, and a total of 4,944 counting tables. There will be an average of 17 rounds of counting to determine the fate of 507 candidates, with a maximum of 23 rounds expected, the official said.

There are a total of 3,37,981 postal ballots, and the poll body has prepared 86 halls for postal ballot and Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) counting. The Kolkata Dakshin Lok Sabha constituency will have a maximum of seven counting centres.

Prominent TMC candidates are party general Abhishek Banerjee, veteran leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Sougata Roy, former cricketer Kirti Azad, and Yusuf Pathan. For the BJP, party's West Bengal president Sukanta Majumdar, senior leader Dilip Ghosh, and Union minister Nisith Pramanik are in the fray, while the Congress has fielded Adhir Chowdhury, and the CPI(M) has nominated Mohammed Salim and Sujan Chakraborty.