BHUBANESWAR: The result of the key Jharsuguda Assembly seat in Odisha will be announced on Saturday, may 13,  aftercounting of votes. The by-election vote counting process would start at Jharsuguda Engineering School at eight in the morning. Postal ballots will be reckoned first while Electronic Voting Machine votes counting will begin at 8.30 a.m., said Chief Electoral Officer Odisha, Nikunja Bihari Dhal.

Counting of votes for the by-election will commence at 8 a.m. at Jharsuguda Engineering School. Postal ballots will be counted first while Electronic Machine votes counting will start at 8.30 a.m., said Chief Electoral Officer  Odisha, Nikunja Bihari Dhal here on Friday.

There will be 14 tables used for the counting and  there will be 18 complete rounds and one more partial round after the votes from 253 booths have been tabulated.  The CEO said that the counting centre has been secured on three different levels. Security for the counting will be provided by the central armed police force, the state armed police force, and the state police.

Following the counting of each round, the collector and returning officers will announce the results by round. He stated that it was anticipated that the counting will be finished between 4 and 6 o'clock. In the by-election held on May 10, 2.21 lakh people cast their ballots, yielding a final vote total of 79.21%.

After current MLA and former Health Minister Naba Kishore Das was killed on January 29, this year, a byelection was required.

Although there are nine candidates running in the byelection, the BJD, BJP, and Congress are the main rivals. Deepali Das, a candidate for the BJD, is running against Tankadhar Tripathy, a candidate for the BJP. Tarun Pandey is a candidate for the Congress.

All eyes are now on the outcome since it will reveal the relative strength of Odisha's three main political parties in advance of the 2018 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

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