Congress casts doubts on rise in voting percentage

Hyderabad: The Congress has demanded that the Chief Electoral Officer clear doubts on the unusual increase in the voting percentage announced in Parliament elections. Addressing the media, TPCC Election Commission Coordination Committee chairman Marri Shashidhar Reddy and convener G Niranjan urged the CEO to give details of votes polled polling station-wise in each Assembly constituency between 5 pm and 6 pm on the day of polling.

They said the CEO should give details as reported by the Returning and Assistant Returning officers. They also demanded the reports of the constituency observers. The Congress leaders demanded that the video recording of the polling stations in four Parliamentary constituencies be made available.

They wanted details regarding the times when the polls closed on the polling day. Shashidhar Reddy said that there was a significant difference of voting percentage between 5 pm and closing time on the polling day. He said the average poll percentage at 5 pm on the polling day was 59.06 per cent. However, this jumped to 64.3 per cent the following day.

He said the total number of votes polled after 5 pm in all the 17 Parliamentary constituencies was 15.36 lakh. In Secunderabad Parliament constituency 1.38 lakh votes were shown to have polled after 5 pm. In Khammam about 1.10 lakh votes were polled. He said these details had given rise to doubts on the foul play by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, he claimed.