Polling won’t conclude until last man/woman standing in queue at 5 pm casts votes: CEO Swain

Gandhinagar:

Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat B B Swain today said that though the official timing of the first phase assembly poll ends at 5 pm but the polling would continue till the last voter standing in queue at that time.

Talking to newsmen here Swain said that at 5 pm the presiding officer on each booth would hand over tokens to the voters standing in queue and the polling process would continue till the last of such voters cast his/her vote.

To a query he said that at some of the booths some technical snags in EVMs had delayed the commencement of polling process.

He expressed hope that people would participate in voting in large numbers and the polling percentage would cross that of last assembly election.

Meanwhile Gujarat election in-charge of BJP and union finance minister in Ahmedbad said that as owing to use of VVPAT more time was being consumed for casting each vote, the party has appealed the ECI to give people appropriate time for it and ensure that no one who was willing to cast vote was deprived of it.

DeshGujarat