Nearly, 17,000 counting personnel and 45 companies of Central Reserve Police Force will be involved in the counting of votes polled in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections.

Briefing media on the arrangements made for the counting on Friday (May 13), the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Praveen Kumar, said the votes will be counted in 234 halls, one for each of the Assembly constituencies, spread across 91 campuses throughout the State.

A three-tier security arrangement has been made with 27 companies of CRPF in place and 18 more arriving. Each counting hall will be secured by 12 security personnel, including three of officer rank. Local police will handle the outermost ring of security. The counting will start at 8a.m., he said. Results will be announced in real time. Abundant precautions have been made to ensure accuracy, and for the first time, the Electronic Voting Machines will be videographed.

The CEO said that over 6,818 ‘serious cases' relating to charges of bribery, violence and distribution of cash for votes have been filed. Charge-sheets were issued in 5,935 cases of which 1,378 have ended in conviction and 4,557 are under trial. Charge-sheets are to be filed in 389 cases and 386 cases have been dropped.

The elections to the 14th Tamil Nadu Assembly were held on April 13. The State witnessed the highest voter turnout of 3.67 crore, representing 78.12 per cent of the vote base.

Two major alliances, one led by the ruling party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) which included the Congress and the Pattaali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the other led by the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) along with the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) and the Left parties, the CPI and the CPI (M) were in the fray. A total of 2,748 candidates contested.

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