MCD poll results: Counting of votes for 250 wards begins

The counting of votes for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi MCD elections began on Wednesday as the ruling BJP hopes to retain its 15yearlong rule in the national capitals civic body while the Aam Aadmi Party looks to make its own doubleengine government in the cityThe highdecibel battle which was fought in the election campaign ahead of the polling on December 4 witnessed the claims and counterclaims by both parties BJP AAP of winning the elections however it all boils down to December 7 when the outcome of the election would be revealedThe counting of votes on the 250 wards began at 8 am The first trends will be expected within an hour as the final results are expected by noon Delhi Police has ensured heightened security for the smooth counting of votesThe polls for 250 wards in the national capital were held on December 4 with about 50 per cent voter turnout and a total of 1349 candidates were in the fray However the low voter turnout may not be an indicator of proincumbency with the exit polls predicting the AAP win in the MCD pollsAlso Read Give us once chance to clean corrupt MCD Arvind Kejriwal to votersCongress which is mostly focussing on the success of the Bharat Jodo Yatra was not predicted in the exit polls to be a prominent challenger in the recently conducted polling The party is predicted to get only a handful of seatsHowever the highstakes civic polls are largely seen as a threeway contest between the BJP the AAP and the CongressFor the counting the Commission has set up 42 counting centres across the city 68 Election Observers have already been deployed by the Commission under whose supervision the counting of votes shall be carried out by the Returning Officers in the presence of candidates or their representativesFurther the Commission has also deployed 136 engineers from Electronics Corporation of India Limited ECIL at these counting centres to attend to any technical issues regarding the EVMs which may arise during the counting of votesSpecial Media Rooms to facilitate viewing of live results on the Commissions web portal on the LED screens at these 42 counting centresThese centres are under multilayered security and entry of persons authorized by the Commission shall only be allowed by the security personnel deployed at these centresThough mobile phone use has been allowed inside these centres the same is restricted to the designated areas only as per instructions of ROSECA Media Centre has also been set up at SEC HQ at Nigam Bhawan Kashmere Gate for the Media personnel to view live results of the elections starting from 8 am onwardsDelhi had witnessed highly charged campaigning by AAP and BJP which made top leaders including Union ministers chief ministers of BJPruled states and MPs hit the streets for doortodoor campaigning and meetings to garner public supportThe BJP which has governed the civic body in Delhi since 2007 is looking to maintain its winning streakHowever the exit polls which came a day after the polling for MCD elections predicted that AAP led by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will now also rule the municipal corporation of the national capital for the first timeThe polls predicted that BJP which has won three successive civic elections in the national capital will be ousted from power in the first election since the reunification of the municipal corporationsThe exit polls also predicted a poor performance by Congress and indicated that the party has failed to revive itself in the national capitalThis was the first civic election after the fresh delimitation exercise There were 272 wards in Delhi and three corporations NDMC SDMC and EDMC in Delhi from 20122022 that later reunified into an MCD that had formally come into existence on May 22This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever