Counting of votes for the 17th Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh began this morning amidst tight security arrangements. Latest Trends available for Lok Sabha elections show that Prominent candidates who are leading include Senior BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Party Chief Amit Shah, Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Out of the total 543 Parliamentary seats, elections were held in 542 constituencies. Over eight thousand candidates are in the fray. The results are expected by late evening due to tallying of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips, VVPAT with the Electronic Voting Machines. This is the first time that in General Elections results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines. The exercise is taking place in five polling stations selected randomly per Assembly segment.