Polling for Council seat peaceful

Warangal: The polling for the by-election to the Council seat under Warangal Local Authorities' Constituency has concluded on Friday. Of the total 902, a whopping 883 elected representatives of the local bodies including councillors, corporators and ex-officio members exercised their franchise.

Although there are five candidates in the electoral battle for the lone Council seat, the faceoff would be between Pochamaplly Srinivas Reddy, popularly known as Varikole Srinivas Reddy, of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Congress' Engala Venkat Ram Reddy. The other three - Annarapu Yakaiah of Mahabubabad district, Thakkallapally Ravinder of Narsampet in Warangal Rural district, and Rangaraju Ravinder of Warangal city, - are the independents.

According to Returning Officer and Urban District Joint Collector S Dayanand, the polling held in 10 centres across the erstwhile Warangal district was peaceful. "The voter turnout is 97.89 per cent. The ballot boxes have reached the strong rooms at Enumamula Agriculture Market Yard and the counting will be done on June 3," Dayanand said. Election Observer Anitha Rajender, Urban and Rural District Collectors Prashanth Jeevan Patil and M Haritha inspected various polling stations.

Earlier in the day, a sizable number of elected representatives of the local bodies, who have been camping in some exotic locations for the last fortnight or so, have reached directly to the polling stations in special buses. The camps were organised by the TRS, it's learnt. It may be mentioned here that the by-election of the Council seat was necessitated owing to the resignation of Konda Muralidhar Rao, who was elected unanimously in 2015. On the other hand, all the ZPTCs and MPTCs, whose term is to end on July 5, have got an opportunity to cast their votes in this election.

Meanwhile, it's believed that polling is a mere formality as majority of elected representatives belong to the ruling TRS. However, the final outcome is only to be revealed on June 3.