Gujarat assembly elections 2017: Repolling begins at six booths

AHMEDABAD: Re-polling has began at six booths in four assembly constituencies in Gujarat on Sunday.

The re-polling was ordered on Friday late night, citing technical reasons, and the Election Commission annulled the polling data that was present in the EVMs.

Fresh voting will be held at two booths each in Viramgam and Savli constituencies and one each in Vadgam and Daskroi constituencies.

Chhaniyana-1 and 2 polling booths in Vadgam, Viramgam-27 booth in Viramgam, Nava Naroda in Daskroi and Nhara and Sankrada booths in Savli will have re-polling, the EC said.

Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani contested from the Vadgam constituency.

Separately, the poll panel has ordered the counting of votes in 10 booths using Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) as the presiding officials forgot to wipe out the mock drill poll results from these Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).

Also, there would be random counting of VVPATs at a booth each in every constituency when votes would be tallied across the state on December 18.

An estimated 68.70 percent polling was on December 14 recorded in the second and final phase of the Assembly elections covering 93 seats in Gujarat.

Voting was held in 93 assembly constituencies across 14 districts in northern and central regions of the state. 

In the second phase, around 2.22 crore people were eligible to exercise their franchise to choose their representatives from among 851 candidates in the fray.

The BJP looks headed for facile victories in both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, exit polls by various media houses concluded unanimously after a rancorous campaign which saw sharp exchanges between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress's president-elect Rahul Gandhi.

Almost all exit polls predicted more than 100 seats for the BJP in Gujarat where the party has been ensconced in power for close to two decades now.