Srinagar, May 23 (UNI) Counting of votes began on Thursday for three Lok Sabha seats of Srinagar, Anantnag and Baramulla in the Kashmir valley and one in Ladakh region under unprecedented security arrangements.
Two former Chief Ministers Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti are among the candidates seeking mandate from Srinagar and Anantnag seats respectively. Dr Abdullah, seeking reelection, was leading after counting of postal votes.
According to Returning Officers (ROs) the postal votes will be taken up for counting first which will be followed by Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) at the end.
One counting center each for Baramulla, Anantnag, Srinagar Lok Sabha seats have been set up established while two centers have been established for Ladakh constituency, one each in Kargil and Leh.Three centers have also been established for counting of migrant votes at Udhampur, Jammu and New Delhi.
'The announcement of final results will be delayed in J&K due to the increase in tallying VVPAT from every Assembly segment,' they said, adding that tallying will only start after the last round of counting.
About 34.61 per cent voters of over 13 lakh electorate exercised their franchise to elect their representative from nine candidates in Baramulla parliamentary constituency, which is spread across 15 Assembly segments of three districts of north Kashmir-- Kupwara, Baramulla and Bandipora.
Meanwhile, about 14.8 per cent voters of 12.95 lakh electorate sealed the fate of 12 candidates, including National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah, who is seeking re-election from Srinagar Parliamentary constituency.
The counting began at S K International Convention Centre (SKICC) on the bank of Dal Lake under unprecedented security arrangements.Returning Officer (RO)for Anantnag Parliamentary Constituency Khalid Jahangir said for counting of votes polled for Anantnag PC, 16 counting centres have been established at Government Degree College (Boys) Khanabal Anantnag.
The turnout this time was 8.76 per cent, a significant fall from the 28.54 per cent recorded during the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Anantnag constituency has 13.97 lakh registered voters where voting was held in three phases on April 23, 29 and May 6.
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