The Hindu : Voting in Presidential poll smooth

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Voting in Presidential poll smooth

By Our Special Correspondent

ALL IN THE FAMILY: The TDP MLA, S.V. Subba Reddy, casting his vote in the Presidential election, with his son-in-law, Bhooma Nagi Reddy, MP, and daughter, Shoba, MLA, by his side. — Photos: Mohd. Yousuf

HYDERABAD July 15. Elections to choose the next President went off uneventfully in the premises of the State Assembly today with the MLAs going through the motion of voting without much enthusiasm.

At the close of polling at 5 pm, 283 MLAs and five MPs cast their vote under the supervision of the election observer, G. R. Patwardhan. It was evident that polling was heavily one-sided in favour of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam since the TDP (183 members), Congress (91) and the BJP (11) had already pledged their support to him. No other political party in the 294-member A. P. Assembly, barring the CPI (M) which has only two MLAs, had declared support to the Left Front nominee, Lakshmi Sahgal.

The MIM, which has four members in the Assembly and one in the Lok Sabha, abstained from voting stating that it could not support Dr. Kalam as he was an NDA nominee. The lone MLA of the CPI (ML), Prajapandha, Gummadi Narasaiah, boycotted the election.

Four Telugu Desam MLAs, E. Peddi Reddi, Mandava Venkateswara Rao, J. L. Padmavathi and K. Meenakshi Naidu, an MP, D. Rama Naidu, and two Congress MLAs, K. Jana Reddy and N. Sreedhar Reddy, could not participate in the voting. Mr. Venkateswara Rao, who is the Minister for School Education, is indisposed with a slipped disc.

Among the other smaller parties, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi announced that it would support Dr. Kalam on the ground that he had served the country well and belonged to the minority community. Both the TRS members, K. Chandrasekhar Rao and R. Papa Rao, turned up for the voting.

Voting was brisk right from the word go as the Assembly had been convened to meet for a brief monsoon session from today to coincide with the Presidential election. Six MPs, including the Union Minister of State for Railways, Bandaru Dattatreya, opted to cast their vote in Hyderabad raising the total number of voters to 300.

The senior Congress MLA, V. Purushotham Reddy, was the first to cast his vote at the stroke of 10 am. Other MLAs lined up in a long queue and nearly 200 votes had been polled by 11.30 am. The Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and the Speaker, K. Pratibha Bharathi, were allowed the privilege of jumping the queue while the Leader of the Opposition, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, cast his vote after the crowd had thinned out.

The CPI (M) members, Nomula Narsimhaiah and S. Rajaiah, the only known supporters of Capt. Lakshmi Sahgal, turned up in red shirts. A TDP member, Gattu Bheemudu, who fractured his leg had to be taken for the polling in a wheelchair. The BJP members came in a group sporting saffron scarves.

For the TDP MLA, S. V. Subba Reddy, it was a family affair of sorts as he cast his vote in the company of his daughter, Shobha, also an MLA, and son-in-law, MP from Nandyal constituency.

The Assistant Returning Officer, K. Tuljanand Singh, who is the Secretary of the Legislature, will take the ballot box by flight to New Delhi tomorrow. The votes will be counted on July 18.

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