Polling to the Municipal Corporation of Karimnagar (MCK) to elect 58 municipal corporators passed off peacefully without any untoward incident in various parts of Karimnagar town on Friday.
Out of a total of 60 municipal divisions, the TRS candidates from two divisions were elected unopposed following the withdrawal of nominations by the opponents. The TRS candidates remained in fray from 58 divisions, the Congress from 53 divisions, BJP from 51 divisions, TDP 14 divisions, MIM 10, CPI 2, CPI(M) 2, Forward Bloc 22 and independents 157. A total of 369 candidates remained in fray.
Incidentally, the polling started on a dull note with low turnout of voters to the 337 polling stations in the town. There were hardly any queues in majority of polling stations and the voters, who visited the polling station, completed the polling process within few minutes. The authorities organised webcasting of polling process in 148 polling stations and deployed 82 videographers for the videography of the polling process in the sensitive polling stations.
Prominent voters
Prominent among those who exercised their franchise in respective polling stations include — TS Planning Board Vice Chairman B. Vinod Kumar, Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Minister for BC Welfare and Civil Supplies Gangula Kamalakar, TPCC working president Ponnam Prabhakar, former mayor S. Ravinder Singh, Collector K. Shashanka, Commissioner of Police V. B. Kamalasan Reddy and others.
Voting was conducted with use of ballot papers. The polling percentage had steadily increased from 10.09 % at 9 a.m., 25.11 % at 11 a.m., 41.17 % at 1 p.m. and 51.60 % at 3 p.m. The authorities were expecting polling to be below 60 % after the completion of polling process by 5 p.m.
Collector K. Shashanka and Commissioner of Police V. B. Kamalasan Reddy toured various polling stations and inspected the arrangements and security aspects.
Process peaceful
The Collector said that the polling process passed off peacefully in Karimnagar town. He said that no polling personnel had abstained to their duties and the polling process started exactly at 7 a.m.
Sensing possible trouble in sensitive polling stations, the police had made unprecedented security arrangements by deploying additional police forces at the polling stations. Armed static forces and mobile forces kept close surveillance of the security and peaceful conduct of elections in the town.
