The Election Commission on Sunday issued directions to Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the five poll-bound States of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Manipur to ensure foolproof security arrangements for vote-counting on March 11. 

The Election Commission has already issued instructions regarding storage and safety arrangements for EVMs, appointment of counting staff and counting agents, along with counting procedures. 

The Commission had several rounds of video-conferences with the CEOs and ROs of the five states to take first hand inputs on the preparedness of the counting arrangements. Giving details of the security mechanism set-up, a senior Election Commission officer said that the commission was not leaving any stone unturned for a fair and transparent counting arrangements at all the 157 counting centres viz., Punjab (53), Goa (2), Uttar Pradesh (75), Uttarakhand (15) and Manipur (12). 

The Election Commission has taken feedback from all political parties and candidates, based on which these additional instructions have been issued with a view to further bolster security arrangements to tackle both general as well as situation-specific exigencies and ensure a smooth counting process in a transparent manner. 

The Election Commission has instructed all the CEOs and District election officers to make the arrangements and undertake counting process cautiously, step by step and without undue haste so as to make them foolproof, the EC officer added. 

The instructions include proper barricading arrangements to be ensured inside each of the counting hall with weld wires-mesh to segregate the counting agents from the counting personnel and EVMs etc. as per the Commission’s instructions. 

In each of the counting halls, proper arrangement for videography should be made to record the general happenings in the counting hall for effective monitoring of the counting process as per the Commission’s instructions. There has to be effective barricading from the strongroom door up to the counting hall door made in such a way that EVMs of each constituency should go to its respective counting hall only, and shall not criss-cross each other.

The CEO shall personally monitor and ensure that all the counting arrangements are done as per the instructions of the Commission.