Hyderabad: Barring a few incidents at some places in the State, polling in 120 municipalities and nine municipal corporations went on peacefully on Wednesday.
According to State Election Commission officials, the polling percent was 67.46 by 3 pm and 55.89 percent by 1 pm in all the districts. In Dabeerpura, the polling was 22.21 percent by 3 pm and 11 percent at 1 pm. It may cross 80 percent voting by the end of the polling, said the officials. The average polling percentage in all the urban local bodies was put at 36.63 percent by 11 am.
Ministers V Srinivas Goud, Singireddy Niranjan Reddy and G Jagadish Reddy, along with their family members cast their votes in their respective polling stations. TPCC Chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy, along with his wife Padmavati, CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka cast their votes.
Speaking to media persons later, Uttam Kumar Reddy and Mallu Bhatti Vikramarkha criticized the TRS leaders for distributing money to the voters by violating the poll code. The police nabbed some people, who were found distributing money at some polling stations, it is learned.
At a Gadwal polling station, policemen resorted to lathi-charge to disperse Congress and MIM activists, who got into a tussle. In the fight, Congress leader Shankar was injured and was shifted to a hospital.
In Yadagirigutta, polling started half-an-hour late in some polling stations due to power cut and the election staff sat on the floor to conduct the voting process as there were no tables. At some polling stations, there were clashes among the activists of Congress, TRS, AIMIM and BJP at some polling stations.
Though the polling started at 7 am, voter turnout was low during the early hours. The election officials used the face recognition app for the first time in some 10 polling stations under Kompally municipality. The Officials of State Election Commission and municipalities were monitoring the poll process through webcasting in 2,406 polling stations and polling was video graphed in 2,072 polling stations.
The SEC set up 6,188 polling stations in the municipalities and 1,773 in municipal corporations in the State. Polling in one of 325 divisions in nine municipal corporations and 80 of 2,727 wards in 120 municipalities was unanimous. There were 1,746 candidates in the corporations and 11,099 candidates in the municipalities were in the fray. As many as 45,000 polling personnel and 50,000 policemen were deployed for election duty.
