Cross-voting suspected

Rajahmundry: Though the election to the prestigious Aryapuram Co-operative Urban Bank which ended peacefully on Sunday, it is strongly suspected that the cross-voting across the panels is likely to influence the results of the poll.

Almost all major parties — the Congress, the Telugu Desam, the YSR Congress and the two communist parties extended support to various panels in the polls that are conducted on non-party basis.

The bank polls received overwhelming response from various political parties and people. Over 50,000 voters exercised their franchise in the polls that started at 8.00 am and lasted till 5.00 pm.

Both the city MLA Routhu Suryaprakasha Rao and MLC Adireddy Appa Rao visited the SKVT school and college premises to check the voting pattern.

Both the leaders even spent some time in the area in support of their panels.

While the Telugu Desam and Bharatiya Janata Party combine and the YSRC and the communist parties combine sported their flags at the polling booths, the Congress did not resort to such campaign.

It is learnt that the leaders of the Congress party suspected that they might face the wrath of people over the Union government's decision to bifurcate the state.

The counting process will be taken up on Monday.