The RK Nagar counting centre

Chennai: Everything is in place for the counting of votes polled in RK Nagar by-election on Thursday, and the Queen Mary's College, the counting centre, is resembling a fortress of security. Counting will be done in 19 rounds on Sunday and the results are expected to be announced around noon. The security arrangement is headed under the assistant commissioner of police, Mylapore. "The second layer of the security is taken care of by the armed reserve personnel and the third layer is strengthened with one deputy commissioner, assistant commissioner, five inspectors, 12 sub-inspectors and 50 others at any time of the day," sources said.

In total, a three-tier security has been placed at the Queen Mary's College and besides the local police, the entire building is closely guarded by the Central Reserve Police Force.

The arrangement will be further strengthened on the counting day, which is tomorrow. Sources said, "around 600 police personnel will be deployed on the day of counting. It will be supervised under eight assistant commissioners".

District election officer D Karthikeyan and Greater Chennai city police commissioner AK Viswanathan visited the centre and expressed satisfaction about the security arrangements. The by-poll, which saw a direct fight between AIADMK's E Madhusudhanan, DMK's Marudhu Ganesh and rebel AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, witnessed a record 77.68 per cent voter turnout.

The constituency, which was represented by the late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, saw peacful polling amid tight security. The voter turnout is higher than the 68 per cent recorded in the 2016 Assembly election, according to officials.