A tense silence grips counting centres

With the Election Commission counting the votes cast for assembly elections across four states on Sunday, dna visited the Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology where votes for 21 of Delhi’s 70 constituencies are being counted.
The campus has three three polling stations; each of which will count the votes for seven constituencies.

Each polling station has three floors. The ground floor has a media room, where representatives of contesting candidates announce the result after each round of counting.
The counting of votes takes place on the first floor amid tight security. Each room on the floor has eight tables each with eight electronic voting machines (EVMs).

Each candidate can send upto two representatives to monitor the counting as it happens. These political representatives are separated by a transparent screen or barrier from the table to allow them to monitor the counting. As the election commission officials count the votes, the same is monitored by the representatives.

After the completion of each round of voting, these representatives come to the media room to announce the result. Silence, nervousness and excitement are palpable at the centre with each passing round of counting.

“I’ve been here from 7:30 in the morning to witness the process,” said Rajesh Drall, who was representing BJP candidate from Nangloi Jat Manoj Shokeen. “I am confident that we will win and the results are showing the same trend. There is a feeling of euphoria.”

At the time of publishing, Shokeen was leading in his consituency with 57,449 votes compared to the 46,434 votes of his closest rival, the Congress' Dr Brijender Singh.