Telangana MLC Elections: Marathon counting on

Hyderabad: Though all contestants exude confidence that they would win the election, the tension in political parties and the candidates, including the independents is mounting as the process of counting for the two MLC seats, is taking a long time. Counting of the votes polled in the biennial election to two MLC seats, Hyderabad – Rangareddy- Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda – Warangal- Khammam Graduates' constituencies has begun on a dull note on Wednesday.

The results are likely to be announced only by Thursday night or on Friday morning since the contestants are unlikely to get the required number of first preference votes to win the election. The fate of the candidates would be known only after the second preference votes were counted.

The officials who were deployed at the counting centres in Hyderabad and Nalgonda took more than 15 hours to prepare the ballot bundles and the counting of votes began past midnight.

Each bundle would have 25 ballot papers. If no candidate secures 51 per cent of the votes polled, the second preference votes would be counted. Since it is a laborious process, the Election Commission deputed additional staff. The officials are working in three shifts at the counting centres.

Mild tension prevailed at Nalgonda counting centre when the BJP workers staged a dharna against the election authorities. The party candidate M Premender Reddy suspected foul play in the counting of votes.

He said that the ballot boxes were not locked when they were brought to the counting centre from the strong room. The BJP demanded the Election Commission to stop counting the votes from the unlocked ballot boxes. Kodandaram also lodged a complaint with state Chief Electoral Officer Shashank Goel on the safety of the ballot boxes.

Sensing a law and order problem, special police forces were deployed at the counting centres and Section 144 was imposed to restrict the movement of the party workers in the premises.