Gearing up for counting day Massive exercise

It is a massive exercise and it is still on. It entails not only people coming out to vote, political parties campaigning and canvassing for support, candidates seeking the blessings of the people but also the huge tasks and responsibilities of the Election of Commission of India and the respective offices of the Chief Electoral Officers in different States of the country. With Manipur having gone to the polls on April 11 and 18, with the Outer Parliamentary Constituency voting on the first day and the Inner Parliamentary Constituency following suit on April 18, the focus of the office of the Chief Electoral Officer is now turned towards May 23, that is the day when counting will be held all over the country. The poll process will be on till May 27 which means that the Model Code of Conduct will be in force till the end of the election process and this means that apart from conducting the polls and the counting that follows, the office of the CEO here will need to be on top gear till everything settles by May 27. Top this off with the fact that voting is still on, the country having wrapped up the fourth phase of voting and May 6 scheduled to hold the fifth phase and the job still remains to be finalised. This means that the country has covered half of the seventh phased polls till date. As stated earlier there are still lots of work to be done and this includes the counting. The CEO office in Manipur appears to have put its best foot forward having worked out the details of the counting to be held on May 23 of which the minutes have been spelt out in the report carried by The Sangai Express in the 4th May edition.
Massive movement of poll material and people including security personnel. Now that polling is over in Manipur, many of the security personnel may have gone back to their place of posting but still there are round the clock security at all the counting centres spread across the different districts in the State and security will be stringent until the poll process is over. Counting to be spread at all the different counting centres across the State and with paper ballot giving way to EVMs, counting will not be as tedious as it was earlier, but still the preparations that have gone to ensure that counting day goes off well without any hitches must be acknowledged. If the past is any indication one may expect litigations and cries of foul play even after the counting and this is one small price to be paid for what is termed as the biggest election in the world involving about 90 crore voters across the country. The vote has been sealed, people have had their say and the fate of the candidates will be known on May 23. One hopes that voters across the two Parliamentary Constituencies in the State exercised their franchise rights in the true spirit of taking part in the biggest democratic exercise in the world and let the winners also acknowledge the point that getting elected means that they have a bounden duty towards the people who they are going to represent on the floor of the Lok Sabha.