COIMBATORE: Election Commission officials have ensured tight security for the Erode East constituency bypoll counting, which is set to begin at 8 am on Saturday at the Government College of Engineering, Erode.

The postal ballots will be counted at 8 am, and EVM counting will begin at 8.30 am, EC officials said. “For safety reasons, 600 police personnel have been deployed in the counting centre, besides a company of CISF. Also, the whole premises have been brought under CCTV monitoring with 76 cameras. A CCTV camera has been fixed in each table,” said District Collector Raja Gopal Sunkara to the media.

The counting process was to be carried out in 17 rounds in 15 tables. “Each table will have a counting supervisor, counting assistant and micro observer deployed through randomisation. After the declaration of results, the EVMs will be shifted to a strong room in the RDO office,” he added.

A total of 246 persons–including those above 85 years, physically challenged and those in services such as the Army and Navy and under preventive detention in jail–have exercised their franchise through the postal ballot system.

There are 47 candidates in the fray in the bypoll that saw a two-cornered fight between DMK’s VC Chandhirakumar and Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) candidate MK Seethalakshmi. The bypoll recorded a voter turnout of 67.97 per cent, with a total of 1,54,657 people exercising their franchise.

The bypoll was necessitated by the demise of EVKS Elangovan.