Party leaders offer prayers, perform havans as the counting of votes for Lok Sabha elections begins

The counting exercise is on in over 4,000 counting centres amid concerns raised by opposition parties over alleged tampering of EVMs. They have asked the Election Commission to ensure transparency in counting.

Kummanam Rajasekharan,BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram constituency offers prayer at Ayyaguru Ashram/ ANI

New Delhi: As the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections 2019 began at 8 am on Thursday, both Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party leaders could be seen devoting their early part of the day in performing prayers. Havans were performed at both BJP and Congress party headquarters to pray for the parties’ good performance in the polls. Expressing certainty over party’s performance, Congress candidate from New Delhi Lok Sabha seat Ajay Maken on Thursday said “The results will be definitely in favour of Congress. We're expecting that Congress will win and form government”. Maken, who is contesting against BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi further said “The fight in Delhi is between BJP and Congress”. The counting exercise is on in over 4,000 counting centres amid concerns raised by opposition parties over alleged tampering of EVMs. They have asked the Election Commission to ensure transparency in counting. Election Commission officials said results are expected only by late evening.

Ajay Maken, Congress candidate from New Delhi LS seat, contesting against BJP MP Meenakashi Lekhi: The results will be definitely in favour of Congress. We're expecting that Congress will win &form govt. Rahul Gandhi will be the PM. The fight in Delhi is between BJP and Congress. pic.twitter.com/zhqUvqDIbH

— ANI (@ANI) May 23, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several union ministers, BJP chief Amit Shah, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi are among key leaders who contested the polls. Most of the exit polls have predicted that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is on course to retain power for a second term. However, the opposition parties have trashed results of the exit polls, claiming that the BJP will suffer severe drubbing due to rising unemployment, farm distress and slowdown in the economy. The voting was staggered between April 11 and May 19 in which around 67 per cent of the nearly 900 million eligible people exercised their franchise to elect 542 members of the Lok Sabha from a total of 8,049 contestants. In the 2014 elections, the BJP won 282 seats while the Congress had suffered a severe drubbing, getting an all-time low of 44 seats as against 206 it won in 2009.