D-Day is HERE! Counting of votes begins

Counting of votes for the high stakes assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry began on Thursday morning with trends expected to be available by 11am.

By noon, a final picture could emerge on who would be the major players in the five states.

Election Commission officials said the counting of votes will be over by 3 pm.

According to various exit polls aired on television channels on May 16, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have voted for change giving the Bharatiya Janata Party its first government in the northeastern state dislodging the Congress which also lost Kerala while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was set to regain power trouncing the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

Only West Bengal has bucked the trend by re-electing Trinamool Congress led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who managed to hold on to power by defeating the Left-Congress alliance convincingly for a second consecutive term, the polls showed.

The Congress could take solace from its projected victory in the Union Territory of Puducherry where it is likely to get power in alliance with the DMK.

The counting of votes will decide the fate of approximately 8,300 candidates including chief minister Tarun Gogoi in Assam and CM contender BJP's Sarbananda Sonowal and Himanta Biswas, chief minister Jayalalithaa and Karunandhi in Tamil Nadu, chief minister Oommen Chandy, CPI(M) leaders V S Achutanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, chief minister Mamata Banerjee and CPI(M) Suryakanta Mishra in West Bengal and chief Minister M Rangaswamy in Puducherry.

According to Election Commission guidelines, half-an-hour after the postal ballots are counted, the process of counting votes from the EVMs begins.

The 'ballot unit' is switched on in the presence of senior poll officials and counting agents of candidates and the result command keyed in to get results per machine.

Where a paper trail audit or 'voter-verified paper audit trail' has been used, the counting agent can call for a count of the paper slips in the drop box attached to the voting machine, but a final count is taken by the returning officer.

Once the results are declared, the names of the winning candidates will find mention in the gazette.

The gazette notification will initiate the process to form the next legislative assemblies in the states.