AGARTALA, May 22 (TIWN): Along with the whole nation, Tripura is all set for vote counting day which falls on Thursday. At the same time, fates of the Political Parties will be decided for next 5 years across India. Counting of votes for the two Tripura constituencies will be taken up at three centres from 8am on Thursday and the final result will be declared not before night 10 pm.Vote counting to be started on Thursday, and the election result will likely be known the same day. The election is seen as a referendum on Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP's main opposition is the Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has produced three prime ministers.

Leaders of 22 opposition parties have met the Election Commission of India (ECI) officials on Tuesday alleging tampering of voting machines and gave idea to how to clear all doubts raised by opposition saying, ‘In democracy nobody should have any doubt’. They demanded that if any discrepancy is found during VVPAT verification, 100 per cent counting of the paper slips of all polling stations in that assembly segment should be done and compared with the EVM results.

EC has instructed all CEOs across states and union territories ---- In all pre-identified cases on Poll day (during scrutiny of documents) where mock poll is not erased from the control unit of VVPAT paper slips pertaining to mock poll not removed (fully or partially) the concerned Control Units should be kept aside during counting of votes i.e. these polling stations will not be taken up for counting during the regular round wise counting of the control units. The table allocated to such polling stations shall be kept vacant during the relevant round of counting. The list of all pre-identified polling stations will be identified with the contesting candidates before the commencement of process of counting”.

The EC then ordered that during the rounwise counting of EVMs if there is any case in which the total votes polled in the CU does not match the record of votes in Form 17-C it is an indication of Close Result Clear (CRC) protocol after mock poll was not properly done in respect of this polling station during the actual poll. In such cases CU shall be kept aside that is those polling stations will not be taken up for any counting. The table allocated to such polling stations shall be kept vacant during the relevant during that particular round. The exact details and reason for the scenario will be described by the RO / ARO to the contesting candidates/ election agents/ counting agents present in the counting hall.

In such cases the corresponding VVPATs shall be counted for these polling stations after completing all counting rounds of control unit counting rounds with CUs.

EC has also directed what have to do after completing all regular rounds of control units :

1)    For all Polling Stations where all EVM and VVPAT are kept due to such mentioned errors, the counting of VVPAT slips only will be done and the control units shall be discarded for counting purpose (Means, Control Units will not be used for counting votes),

2)    Even in case where VVPAT slips pertaining mock poll, still the VVPAT slips will be counted.and the candidate wise votes from mock-poll certificates shall be deducted to arrive as control count of candidate wise votes.

3)    The VVPAT slip count result of all these polling stations shall be added to candidatewise tally and the final result compiled,

Since in the aforesaid cases , the control units (CU) will not be used for counting of votes, these polling stations will be excluded from the random selection (5) polling stations for mandator verification of VVPAT paper slips.

In case of any mismatch between electronic candidate wise results of the Control Unit and the candidate wise VVPAT manual count, recounting the VVPAT slips of that particular VVPAT shall be conducted till the recount is tallied with EVM count or one of the previous VVPAT count. However in such cases before taking up the recount, VVPAT slips pertaining to the candidates whose result of CU count and VVPAT count is not tallying, counting supervisor shall re-check the election symbols of each VVPAT slips carefully of each bundle one by one and ensure that all bundles contain the VVPAT slip of the candidate concern only.

If doing all the exercises, if the tally doesn’t match that VVPAT slips will be primary for the counting as per rule 56(D)(4)(B)of the conduct election rule 1961.