Covid fails to deter people from voting in ZPTC, MPTC polls in Krishna district

Vijayawada: Elections to the Zilla Parishads and Mandal Parishads in Krishna district held in a peaceful manner without any major untoward incident on Thursday. The district registered 63.40 percent of voting in the elections held for 41 ZPTCs and 648 MPTCs. In spite of the second wave of Covid and over 200 cases are reported on average in Krishna district since first of April, the voters turned out in a large number to elect their representatives to the Mandal Parishads and Zilla Parishads. The Election Commission made elaborate arrangements for the peaceful conduct of elections. Polling started at 7 am very slowly and reached to 36 per cent on an average by 1 pm. The percentage went up to 49 per cent by 3 pm and by 5 pm it rose to 63.40 per cent, said the Krishna District Collector Md Imtiaz.

The collector inspected the polling centres in Gudlavalleru, Kaikaluru and Gudivada areas. He inspected the polling through web casting and made suggestions to the election officials for free and fair polls. Joint Collector (Revenue) K Madhavi Latha visited the polling centre in Kankipadu and Joint Collector (Development) L Sivasankar inspected the polling centres in Nandigama.

Lakhs of voters turned up for the polling to elect the representatives to the Mandal Parishads and Zilla Parishads. Long queues were seen as voters wearing masks turned up to cast the votes. The election officials arranged tent houses and drinking water for the convenience of voters. The election staff followed the Covid guidelines and attended duty wearing masks in view of the second wave of Covid cases reported in the State and the country. Compared to the panchayat and municipal polls, the turnout was low for the ZPTC and MPTC elections in the district.