Tirupati: Repolling at two booths today

Tirupati: The bogus voting chaos in two polling booths in the city during the MLC elections on Monday has led to repolling which will be held on Wednesday.

The elections witnessed large scale rigging at a number of polling centres amid the hi-drama created by the ruling party cadres. The police sleuths remained silent spectators when the ruling party cadres were moving in and out of the polling centres while they acted tough on opposition party workers and even arrested some of them.

At some polling booths, YSRCP leaders ensured that the police arrested agents of the opposition parties which paved the way for rigging. Though votes were allegedly rigged at several polling centres, the presiding officers at the polling centre (229) at Government Girls' High School, Chinna Bazar Street and polling centre (233) at ZP High School at Satyanarayanapuram in the city stood firm to stop rigging.

Rigging was at its peak at Satyanarayanapuram polling booth where police arrested TDP leaders and TDP agents who objected to bogus voters from casting their votes. About half-an-hour before the polling was to close, bogus voters thronged the polling centre in large numbers following which the presiding officer left the booth and came out and complained to the Collector and District Election Officer.

At Chinna Bazar street polling booth also a similar situation prevailed which forced the presiding officer to stop the poll process and submit a report to the district election officer who in turn reported the two incidents to the EC. Later on Monday night, the EC ordered repoll at these two centres. District Collector K Venkataramana Reddy announced that following the orders of the EC and the Returning Officer, the repolling will be held on Wednesday at the two polling centres from 8 am to 4 pm.

Repolling will be held amid tight security and peaceful atmosphere for which the official machinery was ready, he said. The Collector held a review with officials on the repolling. Holiday was declared for the two schools on Wednesday and campaigning has to be done about the repolling through auto-rickshaws. Voter slips will be made available at the two polling centres. Meanwhile, the final voting percentages revealed that the Graduates' constituency recorded 70.50 percent polling with two centres left out where repolling was ordered. The Teachers' constituency recorded a final voting percentage of 86.11 in the district.