All eyes are on the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hoping to make a hat-trick with his third consecutive win from the constituency.
Though seven candidates are in the fray from the constituency, the real contest is between the BJP candidate Modi and state Congress chief Ajay Rai.
There was 56.35% of polling in the Varanasi seat against the total electorate of over 19 lakhs held in the last phase on June 1.
District Election Officer S Raj Lingam said here on Monday that 14 counting tables will be set up and 30 rounds of counting will take place. There will be a separate table for counting postal ballots and AROs will be on it. Six separate tables will be set up for personnel counting of votes and for door-to-door voting.
“Four employees will be deployed at one table. The strong room will open first at 6:30 am and counting of votes will begin at 8 am,” he said. Besides postal ballot and service votes will be counted first, he added.
There are eight assembly seats in Varanasi district. In which five seats namely Rohaniya, North, South, Cantt and Sewapuri come in Varanasi Lok Sabha. Similarly, Ajgara and Shivpur assembly come in Chandauli Lok Sabha seat and Pindra assembly comes in Machlishehr Lok Sabha seat.
DM said all the political parties have also appointed agents for their candidates and have submitted their lists to the district administration.
Voting percentage in 5 assembly segments of Varanasi Lok Sabha seat was
North -54.55%, City South-57.07%, Cantt-51.47%, Sewapuri-60.93% and Rohaniya-58.77%.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls PM Narendra Modi won by a margin of over 4.79 lakh votes after receiving 63% of the polled votes.
However in the 2014 elections , PM Modi contesting for the first time from Varanasi won by a margin of around 3.50 lakh votes after getting 56% of the votes.