Telangana polls: Counting of votes from two Graduate MLC constituencies underway

The actual counting is scheduled to start from Wednesday night, and poll trends expected to start emerging from late night.
Counting underway at the Indoor Stadium, Saroornagar on Wednesday  | vinay madapu
Counting underway at the Indoor Stadium, Saroornagar on Wednesday | vinay madapu

HYDERABAD: Counting of votes for two Graduates MLC constituencies — Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahabubnagar (HRM) and Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda (WKN), started on Wednesday and is underway. For the HRM seat, counting is going on at the Indoor Stadium, Saroornagar in LB Nagar while for the WKN seat, it is going at the Market Department Warehouse in Nalgonda under tight security arrangements.

Till 9 pm, all the sealed 799 ballot boxes for HRM constituency were opened and were kept in trays. The ballots of each polling station were made into bundles of 25 each. The remaining 149 ballot boxes have been opened and are being bundled by the counting staff. The actual counting was scheduled to start from Wednesday night, and polls trends were expected to start coming from late night.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has deployed 1,606 polling staff for the process. The ECI has decided to count 56,000 votes in every round. Each table allotted for the process consists of a supervisor, two staff and one observer. The counting is cumbersome as it involves ‘elimination’ process if none of the contestants get more than 50 per cent of the valid votes. 

2. TRS’  candidate Vani Devi at the counting venue 
3.TRS candidate Palla Rajeshwar Reddy | vinay madapu
 

Meanwhile, the first round of counting of votes for Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda Graduates’ MLC constituency began on Wednesday at 7.30 pm in Nalgonda. After the second round of counting, TRS candidate Palla Rajeshwar Reddy was leading over Teenmar Mallanna and M Kodandaram. 

The counting was taken up at 56 tables with 56,000 ballot papers to be taken up in each round. After opening the ballot boxes in the presence of representatives of candidates, the counting staff made bundles of 25 ballot votes for the convenience of counting. In all, a total of 3,86,320 votes were polled during the election. Of the total 1,917 postal ballots, 1,838 were found valid and 79 votes were found invalid.

Lock on ballot box found broken in N’gonda
Nalgonda: Tension prevailed at the Graduate MLC counting centre here on Wednesday when CPI candidate G Jayasaradhi Reddy noticed that the lock on a ballot box was open even as counting was going on. CPI, BJP and Congress activists were concerned that about six to seven ballot boxes in counting hall no. 6 had a damaged seal while the locks of some other ballot boxes had been broken. The activists also claimed that a ballot box in Mahabubabad had 31 ballots less than what it was supposed to have.  The activists protested against the polling officials over the alleged irregularities and staged a protest. The police later dispersed the protesters.

TRS’ Palla Reddy leads in second round 
After the second round of counting for the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency underway in Nalgonda, TRS candidate Palla Rajeshwar Reddy was leading over Teenmar Mallanna and M Kodandaram

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