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Counting of votes got under way Tuesday morning for bypolls held for eight Assembly seats in Gujarat, and the results will indicate the popularity of former Congress MLAs who contested as BJP candidates.
The counting began at 8 am in eight centres set up in these constituencies, an election official said.
The bypolls were necessitated after sitting Congress MLAs resigned ahead of Rajya Sabha polls in June this year.
Five of them then joined the ruling BJP, which fielded them from the same seats they had won in the 2017 elections.
A 60.75 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the bypolls held on November 3 in Abdasa (Kutch), Limbdi (Surendranagar), Morbi (Morbi district), Dhari (Amreli), Gadhada (Botad), Karjan (Vadodara), Dang (Dang district) and Kaprada (Valsad) Assembly seats.
As many as 81 candidates contested the bypolls across the eight seats.
The Election Commission’s guidelines on COVID-19 are in place so that counting agents do not assemble in large numbers at the counting centres, the official said.
Altogether 320 persons have been deployed on counting duty amid tight security, he said.
Counting staff and others allowed inside the counting centres have been provided face masks, gloves and hand sanitizers, he said.
