Puducherry: The territorial administration has made elaborate security arrangements to ensure peaceful counting of votes for the assembly election.
For the first time in Puducherry, the counting of votes will be taken up at two centres, Bharathidasan Government Women’s College and the Government Polytechnic at Lawspet, for the 23 assembly constituencies.
The five constituencies in Karaikkal region, sole constituencies in Mahe and Yanam will have counting centres in the enclaves itself. Three-tier security arrangements by personnel from local police, state armed police and central armed police force have been made in the centres where EVMs are stored. The election officials reviewed the arrangements on Wednesday. Counting starts at 8.00 am Thursday and of postal ballots will be counted first. After the conclusion of it, the counting of votes recorded in EVMs would begin.
Three hundred and forty-four candidates are in the fray in the UT including Chief Minister N. Rangasamy, former chief V. Vaithialingam, former Rajya Sabha member P. Kannan among others.
