COUNTING OF VOTES SET FOR MONDAY

PANJIM: The much-anticipated day-night civic election, the first ever in the country, will not happen. The state election commission (SEC) has bowed down to pressure from the Goa police and has postponed counting to Monday morning. Election officials are however unhappy that the police chose to wake up two days before election-day, when the intent for a day-night election was announced on February 4.

Even as the state election commissioner M M Modassir and North Goa collector Mihir Vardhan reiterated on Friday that it was too late to change, cops persisted with their apprehensions on Friday night and Saturday morning forcing election authorities to relent.

When contacted, state election commission secretary S V Parab said, "The police said that they had apprehensions about having the counting of votes on the same night of the polls. The counting will now be held on Monday morning from 10am onwards," he said.

The CCP elections received much hype after election authorities decided to conduct polling, counting of votes and declaration of results on the same day.

However, with two days left for the polls, the police on Thursday dispatched a letter to the SEC drawing its attention to the fact that by the time counting ends, it will be dark and someone could take advantage of this and create trouble. The police said that if any problem would arise they would not have enough manpower at hand to control any untoward situation. Police sources claim the letter was written after a verbal request to the SEC—to hold counting a day after the poll—was not agreed to.