Postal ballots play key role in deciding winner

Ongole : Postal ballot, the choice of the service employees and employees on duty at other places during the polling, proved that it would decide the fate of the candidate when thousands of votes polled in EVMs cannot determine the winner. Though the postal ballot gets the opportunity very rarely to determine outcome, it got two chances in Prakasam district on the counting day on Tuesday.

At Giddalur, Muthumula Ashok Reddy contested as the MLA candidate on behalf of the National Democratic Alliance while Kunduru Nagarjuna Reddy contested as YSRCP candidate. During the counting, majority oscillated between the two candidates, as the number of rounds increased. By the end of all 21 rounds, Nagarjuna Reddy received a total of 96,000 votes, while Ashok Reddy received 95,608 votes of the total 2,02,314 votes polled in the EVMs. By then Nagarjuna Reddy was leading with 392 votes, and the YSRCP cadre started to celebrate.

Giddalur is home to a large number of servicemen and teachers. The Giddalur returning officer received a total of 4,716 postal ballots. In the counting, 161 ballots were rejected as they were not in valid format, and 18 ballots went for NOTA.

Of the remaining 4,537 votes, Ashok Reddy received 2,855 votes, while Nagarjuna Reddy received 1,490 votes. As Ashok Reddy received 1,365 postal ballot votes more than Nagarjuna Reddy, he got the majority of 973 votes finally and was declared winner.

Nagarjuna Reddy received about 47.45 per cent of the total votes polled in EVMs, while Ashok Reddy got 47.25 per cent of the votes. When postal ballots were include, Nagarjuna Reddy’s vote share fell to 47.13 per cent and Ashok Reddy’s share increased to 47.60 per cent.

A similar incident occurred in the counting of votes polled in Darsi. The YSRCP candidate Dr Buchepalli Siva Prasad Reddy received 1,00,927 votes when his nearest opponent Dr Gottipati Lakshmi, a candidate of NDA received 98,330 votes polled in the EVMs after the final 21st round.

The counting was held amidst tight security, but an incident of fighting by the agents of two candidates occurred already in the counting hall.

As the majority of Siva Prasad Reddy is 2,597, the authorities took extra precautions in counting the postal ballots.

Dr Lakshmi got 1,103 postal ballot votes while Dr Siva Prasad Reddy received 962 votes. The postal ballots didn’t give a majority to Lakshmi, but decreased the majority to 2,456 votes, at last.

A similar tense situation occurred at Madakasira (SC) in Sri Sathya Sai district. The NDA candidate MS Raju received 79,244 votes while his opponent from YSRCP, SL Iralakkappa received 79,148 votes in the EVMs. The majority of Raju is just 96 votes.

The counting of postal ballots created much tension as the Indian National Congress Party candidate K Sudhakar received 344 of the 1597 votes. But at last, Raju received 739 postal ballots while Iralakkappa got 484 votes, and secured a total majority of 351 votes.