Hyderabad: Voting in Telangana picked up pace after the early hours on Thursday with reports suggesting that till around 11 in the morning, in a little over four hours after polling began at 7 a.m. officially, around 20.64 % of voters cast their votes. However, Hyderabad city lagged behind with 12.39% of voters turning up to cast their ballots till reports last came in.
Adilabad had the highest turnout so far with 30.5% exercising their voting right in the first four hours of polling. In the first two hours, the overall polling percentage stood at around 9%.
While voting has been largely peaceful, reports of increasing frequency of minor clashes and disturbances from several constituencies put the election authorities on the alert with the Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj instructions district administrations to take action to prevent such incidents.
Meanwhile, the ECI is being buffeted by complaints of poll violation by the BRS party leaders with opposition Congress filing complaints and seeking action against the ruling party leaders. Among the complaints were on BRS MLC K Kavitha who called on people to vote for BRS and its car symbol, while in Nirmal, minister A Indrakaran Reddy walked into a polling station to cast his ballot wearing a BRS scarf with its party symbol prominently displayed on it.
Most disturbances were clashes between BRS and Congress workers near polling booths reported from Jangaon, Nagarkurnool, Kamareddy, Ibrahimpatnam, Miryalguda, Kothagudem, Palair constituencies. In all these incidents, the police caned the clashing workers from both sides to bring the situation under control.
