VISAKHAPATNAM: The Election Commission on Friday declared TDP minister and state education minister Ganta Srinivas Rao as the winner from Visakhapatnam North Assembly seat.
The poll officials had kept on hold the result following objections raised by the YSRC contesting candidate who alleged discrepancy in the number of VVPATs and the votes polled in five booths.
TDP's Ganta Srinivasa Rao was leading by 2,439 votes on this seat. Trouble started when the counting officials could not open five Electronic Voting Machines for counting. With this, they have started the counting of VVPAT slips pertaining to the five EVMs.
YSRC contesting candidate K K Raju, however, alleged that there is a discrepancy in the number of votes polled in two of the EVMs and the VVPAT slips of the machines. This discrepancy was found in the two EVMs from the polling station number 42.
With objections being raised into the alleged discrepancy, the officials put the result on hold and sought a clarification from the Election Commission of India (ECI) on taking further step.
Raju, however, demanded that repolling should be held at the five polling centres where the EVMs could not be counted.