
Punjab and Goa Elections 2017: The two states voted for the assembly polls on Saturday.
Here are highlights from the Election Commission's news conference on voting in Punjab and Goa:
Umesh Sinha on Goa elections
- Would like to thank state machinery.
- There are 40 assembly seats in North and South Goa
There were 11.17 lac voters in total - More than 11 lakh voters were issued election cards this year
- This election had 251 candidates
- There are 1,642 polling stations in the state
- More than 1,000 EVMs were used in this elections
- It was for the first time that Election Commission deployed Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT in all polling station in a state
- All central observers appointed were women. More than 17,500 postal ballots were deployed
- Goa was first state to do 100 per cent webcasting of the polling
- There was no poll boycott in entire state
- No incidents of paid news
- 40 model polling stations were set up
- For the first time 100% electronically transmitted postal ballots used
- In north Goa the voter turnout was 84% and in south Goa, it was 81.5%
- Record turnout in Goa of 83 per cent was witnessed. This is tentative. Once postal ballots counted and others, we hope we will exceed this figure
- The Election here has been very very festive. This has been highest ever turnout.
- Repoll to be held in one booth in Margao, as officer forgot to close machine after mock poll
- 6 kg drugs worth Rs 34.22 lakh were seized from the state
Sandeep Saxena on Punjab elections
- 22 districts, 117 constituencies, Over 22,000 polling stations
- Over 1,100 model polling stations
- 100% accessible election - complete mapping of facilities for people with disabilities
- There were over 8,100 micro observers
- Total 1.27 lakh polling personnel
- Strong arrangements for security: 500 companies - 50,000 central, 63,000 state police were deployed
- No major incident on poll day was reported throughout the day
- 3,500 stations had webcasting
- 3.6 lakh licensed arms were seized ahead of polls - most of them voluntarily
- Around 58.02 crores cash was seized
- 12.43 lakh litres of liquor seized worth Rs 13.34 crore
- 2,598 kg drugs and narcotic - heroin, ganja (marijuana), capsule etc worth 18.26 crores, 164.3 kg gold and 26.5 kg silver was seized
- There were 59 cases of paid news
- 1,200 people were arrested
- The voter turnout in the state was 70 per cent
- Polling is still going on at many stations. Polling period was fixed from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm and publicity done that everyone who reaches by 5:00 will be allowed to vote
- Total turnout in 2012 assembly elections was 78.06%, in 2014 Lok Sabha it was 70.89%
On cases of EVM malfunctioning, 22,615 EVMs used and 47 malfunctioned - 0.2%
VV Pad - 187 malfunctioned 2.8% (within range of 1-3%)