NEW DELHI: EC on Thursday revised the rules relating to counting of postal ballots, making it mandatory for all postal ballot papers to be counted before the penultimate round of EVM/VVPATs counting is taken up. The new practice will be first implemented in Bihar where assembly polls are due in Nov. This restores the arrangement prior to May 2019, when EC had changed the guidelines to allow EVM counting to proceed regardless of postal ballot counting stage. The 2019 change did not rule out chances of EVM counting being completed before postal ballot counting. INDIA bloc had, during the 2024 elections, objected to the 2019 rule change and demanded a return to the old system, citing cases where the margin of victory was less than the postal ballots polled. Complaining that the result

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