Although the polling held here on Monday for the election of the President was a smooth affair and eventless to a large extent, three legislators – one MLA each of the TRS, Congress and BJP – reportedly committed some goof-up in casting their vote.
The loss, in the event of their ballots are invalidated, is likely to NDA’s Presidential candidate Ramnath Kovind since BJP leads NDA, and TRS too has extended its support to him. Another legislator elected on Congress ticket also switched his loyalties to the ruling TRS long ago.
Enquires
According to sources, they were understood to have enquired with the Assistant Returning Officers – Secretary to State Legislature S. Raja Sadaram and Joint Secretary V. Narasimha Charyulu – whether there is any possibility to get one more ballot paper issued so that they could cast their vote again since they had some doubts over the method of marking their preference in the ballot paper used by them already.
However, they were said to have told that no such facility was available.
It is stated that one TRS legislator from a north Telangana district and the Congress MLA from a south Telangana district, who switched loyalties to TRS, had marked their preference outside the box specified for the purpose. The BJP legislator reportedly goofed-up in giving the preference numbers.
