The counting of votes for the West Bengal bypolls will begin in Kolkata at 8 am today amid heavy security deployment and the initial trends are expected to trickle down in the first hour itself.
The polling was held in Bhabanipur, Jangipur and Samserganj assembly constituencies of the state on September 30.
The poll body has arranged for a three-tier security system, called in 24 companies of central forces and have already deployed them at the counting centre. The entire area will be put under CCTV surveillance. Officials will only be allowed pen and paper and only the returning officer and observer are allowed to use phones, officials informed.
The counting will be held in 21 rounds for the Bhabanipur constituency, 26 rounds for Samserganj and 24 rounds for the Jangipur constituency at the Sakhawat Memorial School of Kolkata
Votes will be counted today for the by-election held in Bhabanipur, a south Kolkata legislative constituency, that Mamata Banerjee has to win to remain West Bengal Chief Minister, having lost the seat she fought in state polls earlier this year.
The Chief Minister has had to contest the by-poll because, despite her own party's tremendous victory in the assembly polls held this Match-April, she could not win from Nandigram. The BJP put up a tough fight there through its recruit Suvendu Adhikari, a confidante-turned-foe of the Chief Minister.
While the Trinamool Congress has claimed that the party chief will win by a margin of over 50,000 votes, the BJP, which fielded 41-year-old greenhorn Priyanka Tibrewal, claimed to have given a "very good fight".
Mamata Banerjee must win the elections to enter the state assembly before the end of her first six months as Chief Minister in this term.