All the six official candidates, three from Congress, two from Telugu Desam and one from TRS, were declared elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday. The poll turned out to be a tame affair after the rebel Congress candidate Adala Prabhakar Reddy retired from contest.
Five of them — M. A. Khan (49 votes), T. Subbarami Reddy and K.V. P. Ramachandra Rao (46 each)- all Congress — and Garikapati Mohan Rao and T. Seetharamalakshmi of Telugu Desam (38 each) polled sufficient number of first preference votes while only K. Keshav Rao of TRS polled 27 votes, falling short of the required 36, which he got subsequently.
Polling began at 9 a.m. with Speaker Nadendla Manohar casting the first vote. Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana and Leader of the Opposition, N. Chandrababu Naidu exercised their franchise before noon. In all, 248 votes were cast when polling ended at 4 p.m. The 23 MLAs with YSR Congress, three from BJP and one from CPI (M) stayed away from polling.
ADVERTISEMENT
Senior Congress MLA Daggubati Venkateswara Rao became the first voter in the history of Rajya Sabha elections to use the ‘None of the above’ (NOTA) option introduced in these polls.