The district electoral officer (DEO) of West Burdwan District, S Ponnambalam has informed that on 4 June counting for the Asansol Lok Sabha seat will take place in 13 rooms of Asansol Engineering College.
“There will be a total 14 rounds of counting and 790 polling personnel have been engaged for the counting process of both postal ballots and EVM machines,” S Ponnambalam said.
There will be 150 tables for EVM machine counting and seventeen tables for postal ballot counting.
The 790 polling personnel includes micro observers, counting observers and counting assistants.
All these polling personnel have been given training in counting at Rabindra Bhawan in Asansol by the district electoral office. The SDM of Asansol Sadar, Biswajit Bhattacharya was present along with the OC Election of Asansol.
Anuj Chakraborty, master trainer and election in-charge Monimoy Goswami too were present.
The district magistrate and district collector, S Ponnambalam said that there will be three-tier security arrangements. The state police will guard the main doors and the central armed police forces will be posted inside the counting centre.
There will be barricades on both sides of the road of Asansol Engineering College on 4 June and vehicular traffic will be restricted.
There are 1,901 booths in Asansol Lok Sabha seat and the counting of 1901 EVM machines will be completed in 14 rounds.
Sitting MP, Shatrughan Sinha of TMC, Durgapur Burdwan MP, Surendrajit Singh Ahluwalia of BJP and Jahanara Khan of CPM are the three main contenders for the prestigious Asansol Lok Sabha seat.
The BJP has won the Asansol seat in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but in the 2022 Lok Sabha by polls, Shatrughan Sinha of the TMC wrested the seat for the first time. Incidentally, Babul Supriyo the two time previous MP and now state IT minister has campaigned for TMC candidates in Asansol and Durgapur.