Counting of votes begins in Telangana amid tight security

Counting of votes polled in the November 30 Telangana assembly elections began at 8.00 am on Sunday. Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) were taken out from the well-protected strong rooms and placed at the counting centres where police have deployed a 3-tier security ring to prevent any unexpected incident. Every counting centre has 14 tables except for six constituencies where the number of polling stations is more than 500, and at such places 28 counting tables will be used. At 8.00 am, postal ballots were taken up first for counting. After 30 minutes, counting of votes stored in EVMs follows, officials said. A voter turnout of 71.34 per cent of the eligible 3.26 crore electors was logged in elections to the 119-member Legislative Assembly on November 30 which passed off peacefully, apart from a few minor incidents. A clear picture on whether the voters gave a thumbs up to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led BRS regime for a third term or prefer the “six guarantees” of the Congress or want the BJP’s BC chief minister, will emerge by afternoon. Whether there is a fractured mandate for the assembly will also be known by around that time. As many as 2,290 contestants are in the fray in the elections, including BRS chief KCR, his minister-son KT Rama Rao, TPCC president A Revanth Reddy and BJP Lok Sabha members Bandi Sanjay Kumar, D Arvind and Soyam Bapu Rao. KTR said in a post on ‘X’, “Hattrick loading 3.0. Get ready to celebrate guys,” indicating BRS will triumph again. The BRS fielded candidates in all 119 seats. The BJP and Jana Sena contested in 111 and 8 seats respectively in a pre-poll pact while the Congress gave one seat to its ally CPI and fought from 118. Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has put up candidates in nine segments in the city. CM KCR contested from two segments-Gajwel and Kamareddy- so did Revanth Reddy, from Kodangal and Kamareddy. The BJP fielded its MLA, Etala Rajender, from Gajwel, besides Huzurabad, where he is the incumbent legislator.