All arrangements have been made for the counting of votes on Tuesday for the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP, which won a landslide victory in the November assembly polls, will look to achieve a clean sweep.
Counting of votes will begin at 8am in all 52 districts of the state, where Lok Sabha polls were held in four-phases on April 19, 26, May 7 and 13. The voter turn out in the state was 66.87 per cent, with the figure being 69.37 per cent from men and 64.24 per cent for women, as per Election Commission data.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party had won 28 of the 29 seats in the state, with the exception of Chhindwara, a stronghold of Congress veteran Kamal Nath.
Among those whose fate will be decided on Tuesday are senior Congress leader and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh from Rajgarh, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, state BJP chief VD Sharma from Khajuraho, former Union minister Kantilal Bhuria from Ratlam-Jhabua and Kamal Nath's son and sitting MP Nakul Nath from Chhindwara.
"All arrangements have been made for the counting of votes for the 29 Lok Sabha seats on Tuesday from 8 AM in the headquarters of all 52 districts. A three-layer security is in place. The Election Commission has appointed 116 central observers for the 29 seats and all of them have reached their designated counting centres," the State's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anupam Rajan told reporters on Monday.
"More than 22,595 officials and employees will conduct the exercise. A total of 3,883 tables have been set for the counting of EVM votes, while 242 tables are in place to count postal ballots. The counting exercise will begin with the counting of postal ballots" Rajan explained.
A maximum of 24 rounds of counting will take place for Pavai assembly segment under Khajuraho Lok Sabha seat, whereas a minimum of 12 rounds will take place for Sevdha assembly segment under Bhind Lok Sabha seat, he said.
"A maximum of 28 tables each have been set up for Balaghat Lok Sabha seat's Seoni assembly segment, Mandla Lok Sabha seat's Keolari and Lakhnadoun seats as well as Vidisha Lok Sabha seat's Budhni segment," he said.
Rajan said 18 companies of central forces, 45 companies of Special Armed Forces (SAF) and 10,000 personnel of district security forces have been deployed for vote counting day.
The postal ballots are being brought to the counting centres since 3pm on Monday in the presence of authorized representatives of political parties, he said.
"The ballots of service voters will be accepted at the counting centre till 8 AM on Tuesday for which special passes were issued to the postal department employees. A total of 37,573 service votes have been received by the concerned district returning officers. The home voting facility was availed by the 35,211 persons above 85 years of age and 12,816 Divyangjan (PwDs)," the CEO said.
A total of 1,432 votes were cast by Essential Services Voters in the state, while 39,510 electoral staff used postal ballots to exercise their franchise, Rajan informed.
The BJP campaign was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with senior leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and former chief minister Shivraj Singh.
The BJP campaign centred around the Congress' appeasement politics, with the ruling party accusing the latter of planning to give quotas meant for SCs, STs and OBCs to the Muslim community.
The Congress' campaign, which was led by Rahul Gandhi, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, attacked the BJP for indulging in crony capitalism and accused it of wanting to change the Constitution to end reservations for deprived classes.
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