COUNTING of votes for the Lok Sabha elections, in which over 8,000 candidates were in the fray for 542 seats, will begin at 8.00 am on Thursday (23) and results are expected only by late evening due to tallying of voter verified paper audit trail slips with EVM count for the first time.
About 67.11 per cent of the 90.99 crore electors had cast their vote in the seven phase elections.This is the highest ever-voter turnout in Indian parliamentarian elections.
This is for the first time in a Lok Sabha election that results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines.
The exercise will take place in five polling stations per assembly segment which effectively means that out of nearly 10.3 lakh polling stations, the EVM-VVPAT matching will take place in 20600 such stations.
The Election Commission (EC) is yet to provide the number of counting centres being set up for Thursday, saying the data is not centrally available.
As per procedure, postal ballots would be the first to be counted.
Service voters stood at 18 lakh. These include personnel of the armed forces, central police force personnel and state police personnel who are posted outside their constituencies.
Diplomats and support staff posted in Indian embassies abroad are also counted as service voters.
Out of 18 lakh registered voters, 16.49 lakh have sent their postal ballots to their respective returning officers as on May 17.
The exercise of counting postal ballots manually will itself take a couple of hours at least, an EC official said.
The paper trail machines slips will be counted in the end.
As per the procedure, first the slips will be counted and the EVM displays would be switched on later to match the results.
In case of a mismatch, the results based in paper slip count will be considered as final.
The entire exercise of EVM-Paper trail machine matching will take an additional four to five hours.
Out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats, elections were held in 542 constituencies as the EC had cancelled polls to the Vellore constituency on the grounds of excessive use of money power.
The poll panel is yet to announce a fresh date for elections in Vellore.
Prime minister Narendra Modi, several union ministers, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav are among key leaders who contested the polls.
(PTI)
Clifford had previously pleaded guilty to the murders of BBC sports commentator John Hunt’s wife and two daughters at their home in northwest of London, in July 2024. (Photo: Hertfordshire Police /Handout via REUTERS)
Crossbow murderer found guilty of raping ex-girlfriend
A 26-YEAR-OLD man who murdered three women in a crossbow and stabbing attack has been found guilty of raping one of them, his ex-girlfriend, a British court ruled on Thursday.
Kyle Clifford had previously pleaded guilty to the murders of BBC sports commentator John Hunt’s wife and two daughters at their home in Bushey, northwest of London, in July 2024.
The attack led to a manhunt before Clifford was found injured hours later in a north London cemetery.
A jury at Cambridge Crown Court on Thursday convicted Clifford of raping 25-year-old Louise Hunt before killing her.
His sentencing for all the crimes is scheduled for Tuesday.
Clifford had admitted to murdering Carol Hunt, 61, and her daughters Louise and Hannah, 28. He had also pleaded guilty to charges of false imprisonment and possessing offensive weapons but denied raping Louise.
During the trial, the court heard that after killing Carol Hunt, Clifford waited for an hour before attacking Louise, tying her up, raping her, and then killing her with a crossbow. He later killed Hannah when she returned home from work.
The prosecution described Clifford, a former soldier, as committing a "violent, sexual act of spite" and said he was "enraged" after Louise ended their 18-month relationship. They told the court that he had "carefully planned" the attack.
Less than 24 hours before the killings, Clifford had searched for a podcast by social media influencer Andrew Tate, according to the prosecution. They argued that the murders were driven by the "violent misogyny promoted" by Tate.
Justice Joel Bennathan called Clifford’s crimes "dreadful" and "almost unspeakable".
(With inputs from AFP)