CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday issued a detailed advisory to his party's counting agents on the duties they must discharge on June 4, the day of the counting of the Parliamentary polls.
In a detailed message posted on his ‘X’ handle, Stalin said, “Counting agents of the DMK must be the first to enter and last to exit the counting centre.”
Instructing his cadre to pay additional attention to the counting of postal ballots, the Chief Minister said, “There are two types of postal ballots. ETPBS (Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System) and ordinary postal ballots. You have been taught the rules. Follow the rules and never accept the invalid votes as valid votes and valid votes as invalid votes. Postal ballots are as important as EVM (Electronic voting machine) votes. Hence, attach more importance to their numbers.”
“Counting must start only with the postal ballots. EVM votes must start only after the first half an hour. Ensure that the counting of postal ballots is not delayed under any circumstance and its results are published soon. Counting agents must ensure that the seals on the EVMs are intact before they are counted. After verifying the seals, cross-check the serial numbers of the EVMs with the Form 17C and make sure that the serial numbers match,” the DMK president said.
“If the seals are tampered with in an EVM or the serial numbers do not match or the recorded votes do not match or the numbers in the EVMs are glaringly different, counting of the EVM must not be permitted,” Chief Minister Stalin said.
He suggested that it would be an advantage if the counting agents attending the returning officer’s table were familiar with the laws. The Chief Minister also advised his counting agents to make sure that the slips of the VVPATs or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (five per constituency) tally with the EVM machines after the counting of the EVM votes.
Stalin also asked the agents to confirm that the vote numbers in Form 17C were correctly entered in Form 20 and the votes entered in Form 20 tally finally.