Malegaon:
It was testing times for the Maharashtra,
Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh assembly aspirants as the Election
Commission had scheduled the counting of the votes a long ten days
after the polling. However, the local Returning Officer by declaring
the election results in a record time provided the candidates who
contested the October 13 elections in Malegaon a timely relief.
Along with other counting centers in
three states, counting of the votes in Malegaon also began at 08:00
on October 22 morning. But Ajay More, the exuberant Returning
Officer in the Malegaon (Central) assembly constituency surprised
everyone by finishing the counting by 09:30 AM - a record one and
half hour time.
The next moment the results were
flashing on television screens followed by an acknowledgment: 'Malegaon
is the first assembly constituency in Maharashtra to announce the election
results.'
Malegaon (Central) had recorded an
impressive 63.30% polling on October 13, 2009. There were 192
polling booths all over the constituency having a whopping 96%
Muslim voters. The counting team led by Returning Officer Ajay More
had arranged 14 tables for counting of the total 1,51,088 votes
stored in 192 Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). The final result
took 14 rounds of counting. Counting in 13 rounds were done on 14
tables whereas the final 14th round was done on 10 tables. The
counting that began exactly at 08:00 in the morning ended at 09:30
AM.
A record in itself. But Returning
Officer Ajay More says he had planned to finish the counting even
faster. "In fact, I was confident of finishing
the counting in 1 hour 10 minutes. I was late by 20 minutes. Still I
am first in the state to announce the election results", a
beaming Ajay More shared with ummid.com.
The reason for his confidence was the
determination and efficiency - something that normally miss with
government officials - with which Ajay More worked ever since the
polling for the assembly election was over on October 13.
Ajay More's IT Hands... |
|
"My
computer team headed by Ashfaque Ansari developed the software
specially for me. Using that I converted the 35 report formats
into one. It immensely helped me in saving the required time"
- Returning
Office
Ajay More |
"The software provided by the Election
Commission was good. But I did not rely on that. Instead, my
computer team headed by Ashfaque Ansari developed one specially for
me. Using that I converted the 35 report formats into one. It
immensely helped me in saving the required time", said Ajay More.
The software that Ashfaque developed
for Ajay More also provided him the facility to check and
counter-check the results before announcing.
"Before announcing the progressive
results after every round, I needed to check if they are accurate.
The software had a simple command to do it with optimal perfection
and timing", Ajay More said to ummid.com.
While the IT team comprised of
Mudassar Nazar, Habib and Sajid besides Ashfaque Ansari, Ajay More
was assisted by Assistant Tehsildars TJ Patil, Rao Saheb,
Bagade, and Kundan Awasti and Damne from Municipal Corporation.
"When Election Officials were busy in
training the counting staffs after the polling was over on October
13, we were conducting the mock tests to check the accuracy of our
software", said Ashfaque Ansari who was leading the IT team.
"By the team the counting day arrived,
we were fully ready to finish the calculation of each round's total
votes and final result as quickly as possible", he added.
The counting staff and other officials
were also pleased over the entire arrangements. "When we arrived at
the counting centre, the data structures were readily available in
five computers. What we needed to do was enter the total votes
counted on 14 tables in each round and the result was available
immediately", said Kundan Awasti.
Returning Officer Ajay More, who is
also Prant Officer and Sub District Magistrate of Malegaon, had
during the parliamentary elections received the distinction of
issuing maximum number of election identity cards in Nashik
district. With elections over, he is now planning for fool-proof and
error-free ID cards in his constituency.
|