.Results by 5 pm

Warangal/Mahabubabad: Even as the officials have ensured preparation for the counting of votes, all the eyes are on the VVPAT slips. With the results will be declared only after the tallying of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips with the electronic voting machine (EVM) count is completed, the people's attention was invariably on the process.

It may be recalled here that according to Supreme Court's orders, the authorities will have to tally VVPAT slips and EVM count in five polling stations from each Assembly segment. In all, VVPAT slips of 35 polling stations will be counted in Warangal and Mahabubabad Parliament seats.

"After the completion of counting of votes through all EVMs, the VVPATs of five polling stations of each Assembly constituency will be randomly selected. It will take about 45 minutes to count the slips in each VVPAT," the returning officer (RO) and Warangal Urban district collector Prashanth Jeevan Patil said.

He said that the entire counting process would be completed by 5 pm. The counting of EVMs will be completed by 1 pm. It's learnt that RO's decision is final in case of any dispute.