Guwahati

Counting of votes for the panchayat polls in Assam began on Sunday morning amid tight security, officials said.

Polling took place in two phases, on May 2 and 7, in the state's 27 districts for the first time after the delimitation of the constituencies.

"The counting of ballot papers began at 8 am. The counting agents of the candidates reached early in the morning for the exercise," a senior official of the Assam State Election Commission (ASEC) said.

In view of some violence and disruptions during the voting, the administration has arranged adequate security measures in all the counting centres, he said.

"There are thousands of seats in the election. We will try to complete the counting as soon as possible. However, we believe that it is likely to stretch till tomorrow," he added.

There are a total of 21,920 Gram Panchayat (GP) seats, with 10,883 seats reserved for women. Voting also happened for 2,192 Anchalik Parishad (AP) seats, with 1,124 reserved for women, and 397 Zilla Parishad seats, of which 199 were reserved for women.

As many as 1,289 seats were decided uncontested -- 21 ZP seats, 151 AP seats and 1,117 GP seats.

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A total of 1.80 crore people were eligible to exercise their franchise in this election. A voter turnout of 74.71 per cent was recorded.