The high percentage of polling witnessed in the first full-fledged elections to 119 constituencies in Telangana left the political parties guessing about its impact on their fortunes.
Outwardly, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) claimed that this was a positive vote in favour of the government that delivered, while the opposition Congress-led alliance, People’s Front, asserted that the high percentage reflected the prevailing “anti-incumbency” factor against the TRS regime. However, the parties are apparently calculating the effect the high poll percentage will have on their candidates.
Narsampet Assembly constituency in the erstwhile Warangal district reported a high 84% voting followed by Alair with 83% till 5 pm. According to information received by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, Suryapet and Thungaturthi in the erstwhile Nalgonda district reported 73% polling till 3 pm while Bellampally (SC) constituency was a shade behind with (69.54%) by the same time.
There were several constituencies which reported over 60% polling till 3 pm. CEO Rajat Kumar, however, said the polling percentage hovered around 67% till 5 pm and there could be no marked changes when the final reports come in by Saturday afternoon. Polling, however, remained on the low side in the State capital which has more than 10% of the total seats with constituencies in the Old City, in particular, reporting less than 40% polling.
‘Indiscriminate deletion’
The low percentage of polling in the city, according to opposition parties, was because of the “indiscriminate” deletion of names of eligible voters during the summary revision process to benefit the ruling party. Mr. Rajat Kumar, however, clarified that there was no case of deletion without adopting proper procedure like serving notices on people whose names were to be deleted.
“Several votes were removed during the Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls (IRER) taken up during 2015,” he said, adding the election authority had in fact given ample time for the electors to enrol themselves in the last three months ever since the Assembly was dissolved. Mr. Rajat Kumar said the election authority had taken a serious note of the missing votes and had resolved to address the problem during the special summary revision set to start on December 26.
He said a case was filed by Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy on the deletion of votes, but it basically pertained to “bogus” votes and not the missing ones. “The complaint had been verified by the Election Commission and a report has been finalised. The matter is closed now,” he said.
