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Poor voter turnout in Avanigadda by-poll
The turnout of voters for the by-election in this Assembly segment on Wednesday was poor, with just 40 % polling recorded at the end of the day. The constituency recorded just 6 per cent polling in the first three hours. The unimpressive voter turnout is attributed to most agriculture labourers being busy with paddy transplantation work, while several others are taking part in the Samaikyandhra agitations. All this meant not much work for election officials, but heightened tension for Telugu Desam candidate Ambati Srihari Prasad.
- 40 per cent polling
- Counting on August 24
D Gopi
Avanigadda (Krishna): The turnout of voters for the by-election in this Assembly segment on Wednesday was poor, with just 40 % polling recorded at the end of the day. The constituency recorded just 6 per cent polling in the first three hours. The unimpressive voter turnout is attributed to most agriculture labourers being busy with paddy transplantation work, while several others are taking part in the Samaikyandhra agitations. All this meant not much work for election officials, but heightened tension for Telugu Desam candidate Ambati Srihari Prasad.
The by-election was necessitated by the death of sitting Telugu Desam legislator Ambati Brahmanaiah due to illness in April this year. The TD had fielded Brahmanaiah’s son Srihariprasad and tried in vain to make it a unanimous election. The ruling Congress and the YSR Congress stayed away from the contest as a tribute to Brahmanaiah. In all, 11 candidates filed their nominations and the TD was able to make 9 of them withdraw their nominations in the last minute. However, two candidates, Rao Subrahmanyam and Saikam Rajasekhar, turned down the requests of the TD and remained in the fray.
The TD candidate had a tough time in campaign with the party leaders deeply involved in the Samaikyandhra agitation. Even on the day of polling many voters chose to go for work, instead of exercising their franchise.
It is believed that some of the voters gave him a shock by casting their votes on ‘fan’ symbol allocated to independent candidate Rao Subrahmanyam, thinking that it belonged to the YSR Congress. The TD agents who realized this faux pas quite late had to explain to voters that the fan symbol belonged to independent and not to the YSR Congress. The TD faced tough competition from another independent, Saikam Rajasekhar, belonging to the dominant fishermen community. Voters from the fishermen community in Koduru and Nagayalanka mandals favoured the independent, posing a threat to the TD nominee. Later alerted TD leaders swung into action and went round collecting farm labourers and bringing them to the polling centres.
The polling, which remained below 20 per cent till 3 pm, picked up slowly with the agriculture labourers returning home and subsequently walking towards the polling stations on the request of the TD candidate. Finally, the polling touched 40 per cent by the end of the day at 5 pm.
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