Traffic snarls in Mangaldai
Traffic snarls on the Telipara-Kerimeri PWD road on Wednesday. Image credit - Northeast Now

The counting of votes polled on December 5 in the first phase of Panchayat polls in Assam’s Darrang district continues in the temporary counting centres set up at Mangaldai College.

The counting, which was scheduled to start from 8 am, began late by about one-and-half-hour reportedly due to some technical reasons including delay in the arrival of some of the authorized agents of the political parties.

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Out of the total of 10 rounds, till filing of this report late in the evening, official results of only a couple of rounds have been announced where the BJP, Congress, AGP, AIUDF, BPF and even independent candidates shared seats for Gaon Parishad Member, Gaon Panchayat President and Anchalik Panchayat Member.

On the other hand, in majority of other seats particularly in Sipajhar and Mangaldai LACs, candidates of the ruling BJP are stated to be taking lead.

However, there is hardly any possibility of announcement of results of any of the fourteen Zila Parishad Constituencies on Wednesday.

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Meanwhile, there has been a massive crowd outside Mangaldai College since early in the morning forcing the authority to divert the long distance vehicles through Bonglagarh–Bezpara road via Islampur and Karimchowka connecting with the NH-15 at Kerimeri of Telipara-Kerimeri connecting PWD roads as an alternative route to the stretch of the NH passing through the Mangaldai town.

However, due to very narrow width of the roads especially from Islampur to Karimchowka and then in between Telipara and Kerimeri, the vehicles took a long time to cross that distance of nearly four kilometres.