Freebies galore for rural voters in Hyderabad

As the poll campaign came an end on Wednesday, the Telangana rural voters started packing their bags to reach their respective districts to cast their vote on the day-of-reckoning. While the officials of Election Commission and State Police Departments were busy checking money and liquor distribution by the candidates to lure the voters, the rural contestants set sights on winning over the locals residing in the city to gain votes. 

Particularly, the youth have been getting fervent calls from leaders in their villages assuring them pickup and drop services along with food facilities on the election day if they accept to vote them. With fear of heavy rush on the election day and keeping in mind the comfort of going in a separate vehicle, most of the youth formed group of 6-7 members and demanded a vehicle, and other facilities.  The leaders are also identifying families and negotiating deals assuring them weekend packages like (picking up on Friday and dropping on Monday) against their votes. 

These kinds of bribes offered by the candidates are not easy to identify for the Election Commission and the Police Departments, who mostly are concentrating on liquor and money distribution. Political experts say that there is no guarantee whether all the youth would cast vote to the candidate bearing the expenses and there is no mechanism to find whether they voted or not. 

Bargav, a techie from Nizamabad said that he got many calls from his constituency leaders of providing travel and food for the vote. “I have no interest to use my vote this time also because whoever comes into the power involves in dirty politics. Till date, no party is worked for the benefits of people and are always busy in protecting their assets from investigation agencies like ACB, IT and CBI. This time, I got many calls from my own area leaders saying that they will arrange my travel if I accept to vote them, I said no,” he said.

BY V Sateesh Reddy