Hyderabad, March 4 More than 21,000 votes have been declared invalid in Telangana Legislative Council election from Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad-Karimnagar Graduates’ constituency, where the counting process continued for the second day on Tuesday.
The counting staff completed sorting of 2.10 lakh votes. The sorting of another 40,000 votes was underway.
Out of the sorted votes, 1.89 lakh votes were found valid. As many as 21,000 votes were found invalid, mainly due to wrong markings on the ballot papers.
According to Election Commission officials, many voters marked their preferences in words instead of in figures, resulting in their votes being declared invalid.
A total of 2,50,106 voters cast their ballots in the Graduates' MLC polls on February 27 sealing the fate of 56 candidates.
Some candidates said the high number of invalid votes was due to a lack of proper awareness among the voters about the method of exercising their franchise in the preferential voting system.
The counting of first-priority votes will begin after the completion of the sorting process. The candidate polling more than 50 per cent of first preference votes will be declared elected. If there are no winners in the first preference votes, the counting of second preference votes will be taken up.
Ruling Congress and opposition BJP are locked in a direct fight in this constituency, which is currently represented by senior Congress leader and former minister T. Jeevan Reddy.
The Congress fielded V. Narender Reddy, who is pitted against BJP's C. Anji Reddy.
In the election held on February 27, a total of 70.4 per cent of voters had cast their votes.
Polling was also held the same day for Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad-Karimnagar and Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda teachers' constituencies.
BJP-backed candidate Malka Komaraiah won the election from Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad-Karimnagar teachers' constituency spread across 15 districts.
He won the seat with a margin of more than 5,700 first preference votes against his nearest rival Vanga Mahender Reddy of the PRTU (TS).
Komaraiah secured 12,959 votes while Mahender Reddy polled 7,182 votes. Of the total 25,041 polled votes, around 897 votes were declared invalid.
PRTU (TS) bagged the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda seat. Its candidate P. Sripal Reddy emerged winner in second-preference votes. He secured 13,969 votes. Sitting MLC Narsi Reddy of UTF finished second.
A total of 19 candidates were in the fray in this constituency. Out of 25,797 voters, 24,135 had cast their votes.
BJP, which fielded candidates in all three constituencies, celebrated its victory in Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad-Karimnagar teachers' constituency.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar said teachers reposed faith in the BJP. He alleged that Congress and BRS had secret understanding but they failed to defeat BJP.
Bandi Sanjay, who is a member of Lok Sabha from Karimnagar, said the BJP would come to power in Telangana in the coming days.
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