Counting of votes for Karanpur assembly seat begins

Jaipur: Counting of votes for the Karanpur assembly seat, where polling was deferred due to the death of a candidate, commenced at 8 am Monday.

The final tally will decide the fate of several candidates, one of whom is BJP's Surendra Pal Singh, who has more at stake than just this seat.

Counting is underway on 17 counters at Dr Bheemrao Ambedkar Government College in Sriganganagar, the district under which the constituency comes.

The seat went under polling on Friday, recording a voter turnout of 81.38 per cent.

Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said that counting of EVMs will be done on 14 tables. Two tables have been set up for the counting of postal ballots, in addition to one kept for counting electronically transmitted postal ballots.

The election for the seat was postponed due to the death of the Congress candidate and then MLA Gurmeet Singh Koonar. Koonar's son, Rupinder Singh, was fielded by the Congress from the seat.

Surendra Pal Singh was inducted into the Rajasthan ministry after the BJP won the assembly polls, bagging 115 of the 199 seats.

The Congress criticised his induction in the ministry, terming it a violation of the model code of conduct.

As per rules, Surendra Pal Singh has six months to get elected as an MLA since his induction as a minister.

In the Rajasthan assembly polls held on November 25, BJP won 115 seats and Congress 69.

BJP's Bhajanlal Sharma took oath as Chief Minister on December 15. Newly elected MLAs Diya Kumari and Premchand Bairwa were made deputy chief ministers.