Peaceful polling to 6 seats of Telangana Council sees heavy turnout

Hyderabad, Dec 10: The polling for biennial elections to six seats of Telangana Legislative Council from local authority constituencies was held peacefully amid tight security arrangements on Friday.

Local body representatives, including corporators, councilors, ZPTC and MPTC members, cast their votes in the six constituencies in five undivided districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Medak and Nalgonda

The polling was held for two seats in Karimnagar district and one each in the remaining four districts. A total of 5,326 voters were eligible to cast their votes.

Chief Electoral Officer Shashank Goel said the highest turnout of 99.70 per cent was recorded in Karimnagar, followed by Medak (99.22 per cent), Nalgonda (97.01), Khammam (96.09 per cent) and Adilabad (91.78 per cent).

He said the polling was peaceful and smooth at all the 37 polling stations, in which 26 candidates are in fray.

The CEO said that counting of votes will be taken up on December 14, for which tight security arrangements have been made at the strong rooms where the ballot boxes are kept.

Goel said Covid-19 protocols will be strictly enforced during the counting, and there will be no permission for victory processions after the declaration of results.

Facing rebel trouble, ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had shifted its local body members to Bengaluru, Goa, Delhi and other places to prevent the opposition parties from poaching. They were brought to a resort on the outskirts of Hyderabad on Thursday, from where they left for their respective districts on Friday morning.

TRS rebel candidate and former Karimnagar Mayor Sardar Ravinder Singh is contesting from one of the seats in the district. The BJP extended support to him. Congress candidates are in the fray in Medak, Khammam and Adilabad.

The Election Commission of India had last month issued notification for elections to six seats of the Council from local authority constituencies.

Earlier, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao's daughter K. Kavitha and five other candidates of TRS were declared elected unanimously.

Kavitha was elected from the Nizamabad constituency. The others who were elected to the upper house of the state legislature are Patnam Mahender Reddy, Shambipur Raju (both from Rangareddy district), Pochampally Srinivas Reddy (Warangal), Kasireddy Narayana Reddy and Kuchumalla Damodar Reddy (both from Mahabubnagar district).