HYDERABAD: Hyderabad is witnessing a mass exodus, albeit of the temporary kind. A sizeable portion of its migrant population is heading ‘home’ to vote, in Andhra Pradesh and interior parts of Telangana, on April 11. Lok Sabha Polls are being conducted simultaneously in these two sibling States.
Several bus stands and train stations in the city saw massive crowds on Tuesday.
A Ramesh, a passenger who was boarding a train to Vijayawada at Secunderabad Railway Station, thought he had done the smart thing by travelling two days ahead of the polls. He thought he would avoid the large crowds of Wednesday. “I thought I would take the train on Tuesday. But when I reached here, I was shocked to see so many people,” he said.
However, railway officials note that they have it under control. “We are running 36 special trains in addition to the 40 regular ones we generally operate, owing to the increase in traffic due to both elections and summer vacations. These trains will be run between April 8 and April 10. The number of trains may be increased based on traffic,” an official said.
He added that additional manpower would be deployed to manage the crowd. Additional booking windows have also been opened for the people’s convenience, he said.
Sources note that the mass exodus among voters is due to the fact that many politicians have lured voters to cast votes in their native places in AP and districts of Telangana than in the city by booking for them two-way tickets. Even their food has been planned in advance.
Similar crowds were seen at Nampally Railway Station where four trains — Charminar Express, Chennai Express, Godavari Express and East Coast Express — ran packed to the brim. Officials note that a majority of travellers were labourers from districts and AP.
Meanwhile, operators of private buses are making a killing by selling tickets at nearly 50-70 per cent more than regular prices. For instance, a ticket to Kurnool costs between Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,300, against the normal Rs 500.
The TSRTC and APSRTC have made stop-gap arrangements by pushing in more vehicles to cater to the election rush. While TSRTC is running around 200 odd buses to AP, APSRTC is running somewhere close to 700 buses between Hyderabad and various parts in the State.
“We will be deploying our entire fleet of 10,000 buses on polling day of which 2,000 will be reserved for inter-district transport,” noted an official from TSRTC. Another 1,500 buses will be helping in transporting polling personnel to their various duty locations. All other buses will continue to run as per schedule.
Fire breaks out in train at Nampally railway station
On a day when footfalls swelled at Nampally railway station due to a large number of ‘electors’ heading to Andhra Pradesh, a fire accident broke out in one of the trains. A coach in Charminar Express caught fire, while it was stationed, at the railway station. Though no one was injured, the thick smoke emanating from the coach created panic among the passengers.
The fire broke out at about 10:00 am on platform No 6 where the train was stationed before it was to be taken for cleaning. When an engine, attached to the train, tried to move the train to the cleaning yard, the last but one coach caught fire, a railway police official said. “We alerted the fire services department. They came immediately and doused the flames,” the official added. It is suspected that the fire broke out in a general compartment due to an electrical short-circuit, leading to seats and wiring in the train getting damaged.
