Mumbai, Nov 22 || The state election machinery is all set for a smooth and peaceful counting of votes in 288 Assembly constituencies across Maharashtra to be held on Saturday.
Buoyed by a record 66 per cent polling against 61.1 per cent in the 2019 Assembly elections, the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said that the counting of votes will start at 8 a.m. at all polling stations. During this process, the counting of postal ballots will begin at 8 a.m., followed by the counting of votes on EVMs at 8:30 a.m.
MahaYuti comprising BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP and Maha Vikas Aghadi consisting of Congress, Shiv Sena UBT and NCP-SP are engaged in a fierce fight for supremacy.
In addition, the Vachit Bahujan Aghadi, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Maharashtra Swarajya Paksha and other smaller parties have also fielded their nominees making it a multi-party contest. There are a total of 4,136 candidates comprising 3,771 men, 363 women and two others in the fray.
In all, 288 counting centres have been set up for 288 Assembly constituencies and one counting centre for Nanded Lok Sabha constituency. Further, 288 counting inspectors have been appointed for 288 Assembly constituencies and two counting inspectors for the Nanded Lok Sabha constituency. The number of postal ballots is high in all Assembly constituencies, hence, 1732 tables for postal ballot counting and 592 tables for ETPBS scanning (pre-counting) have been set up at 288 polling stations.