Gram Panchayat Polls end peacefully in Krishna district
Photos: Y Vinay Kumar
Vijayawada: The fourth and the last phase of panchayat polls ended peacefully in Krishna district on Sunday. The polls were held in 275 village panchayats of 14 mandals in Nuzvid revenue division. Youth, adults and senior citizens alike participated in the polling and exercised their franchise.
Polling was conducted amidst heavy bandobust and no major untoward incident was reported in the division. The voters exercised their franchise from 6.30 am to 3.30 pm. The total percentage of voting was 85.64.
A total of 5,48,025 voters cast their vote against 6,39,888 voters in the revenue division. Agiripalli mandal recorded the highest percentage of voting with 90.13. All mandals crossed 80 percent voting and the least was Gampalagudem with 80.18 percent voting.
Earlier, the Election Commission made arrangements for the polling in 2,931 polling stations to elect the sarpanches in 275 villages and 2,407 ward members. By 2.30 pm, 79.27 percent voters cast their vote with highest percentage of voting recorded in Nuzvid mandal with 85.37. Senior citizens accompanied by their family members came to the polling station to cast their votes since every vote counts in the panchayat elections.
Similarly, youth joyfully participated in the panchayat polls to cast their votes and elect the ward members and sarpanches. The turnover was massive by the end of 3.30 pm as 85 percent voters turned up for the polling. Being Sunday, there is no other activity in the rural areas. Krishna district collector Md Imtiaz visited the polling stations in Agiripalli, Nuzvid and Unguturu mandals and enquired about the arrangements for the polling. More than one third of voters cast their votes by 10.30 am in the first four hours.
Long queue lines were seen in the polling stations as the enthusiastic voters visited the polling station to elect the sarpanches and ward members. Nuzvid sub-collector PratishtaMangain inspected the polling in the division through the web casting and visited some polling stations in Agiripalli and other mandals since morning.
The district police have made elaborate security arrangements to prevent any untoward incident. Eluru Range DIG KV Mohana Rao visited the polling station in Bapulapadu mandal and made some suggestions to the police personnel. He said that the four phases of polls in Krishna district ended peacefully without any major untoward incident.
District SP M Ravindranath Babu visited Bapulapadu, Chatrai and Vissannapeta mandals and supervised the security arrangements for the polling and made suggestions to the police personnel. He said the polling was conducted peacefully due to the collective efforts of police, revenue and other departments. By and large, four phases of polling ended peacefully in Krishna district.