With four-phase of poll for the Kshetra and District Panchayat members over, the UP State Election Commission (SEC) is gearing up for counting of votes on November 1.

Counting of votes would start at 8 am on Sunday at all the 819 block headquarters amid tight security arrangements, said SEC, 

SK Agarwal in lucknow on Friday.

Talking to reporters, Agarwal said that all the results would be declared within 15 to 18 hours of the start of the counting. “The polling was carried out through paper ballot so counting will take some time,” he said.

Round the clock video recording would be done during the counting. Except for the candidates or their representatives and the counting personnel no one would be allowed inside the centre.

Additional SEC, Ved Prakash Verma said that the counting would be completed in two shifts of 12 hours each besides it would be done separately for Kshetra and District panchayat.

“Before the counting, the ballot papers would be mixed so that the candidates can not assess the villages where he got support from or was discarded,” Verma added.

Inspector General of Police (law and order) A Satish Ganesh said that 98 companies of PAC along with district police would be deployed at the counting centers. He said 25 companies of PAC have been kept in reserve at district headquarters in case of any emergency.

The four-phase polling ended on Thursday with around 62.9 per cent voters casting their votes. There are 55,219 candidates for the post of 3,112 district panchayat members’ post while 4,09,986 candidates are in the fray for 77,576 posts of the 819 Kshetra panchayats.