Greater poll registers 45%

Hyderabad: About 45 per cent of the 74.23 lakh electorate cast their votes on Tuesday in the elections for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), which were marred by lack of enthusiasm among voters and sporadic incidents of violence.

GHMC commissioner and special officer Janardhan Reddy said roughly 45 percent voters exercised their franchise. "This may change by two to three percent as the final figures will be available later," he said. The polling ended at 5 p.m. but those standing in the queues were allowed to cast their votes.

The turnout exceeded 42.92 percent recorded in 2009 polls but far below the expectation of GHMC officials, who were hoping a 20 percent increase in the voting. Janardhan Reddy said the polling was "peaceful barring minor incidents".

There was lack of enthusiasm among voters as the polling began on dull note but did not pick up as expected. Clash between MIM and Congress workers and the attack by MIM workers on the house of Deputy Chief Minister Mahmood Ali in the evening marred the polls.

GHMC Commissioner and Election Authority Dr B Janardhan Reddy has cast his vote in the early hours at Chinmaya School situated at Kundanbagh along with his family members. Right from 7 a.m., the Election Authority, monitored the election process interacting with officials. The control room at the GHMC Head Office was monitoring the election process through webcast from various polling stations.

The Election Authority has also seen the webcasting process in most sensitive and hyper sensitive polling stations. The webcasting has been provided in 3,000 polling stations and around 2,800 polling centres. Out of 7,802 polling stations only nine polling stations were identified where minor problems with EVMs were reported and within minutes the EVMs were replaced. Dr Janardhan Reddy said that minor incidents took place at Asif Nagar, Shalibanda, Shasthripuram, Langer Houz and other places, where the situations was brought under control.