Rural areas witness high voter turnout

Warangal: The polling, which began on a dull note at 7 am, picked up slowly by the evening in 12 constituencies of the erstwhile Warangal district on Friday. People in large numbers turned up to polling booths especially in rural pockets of the constituencies. Barring a few sporadic incidents and technical glitches, the polling on Friday was completed peacefully in the erstwhile Warangal district.

While rural constituencies - Parkal (89%), Narsampet (87%), Palakurthy (83%), Station Ghanpur (82%), Janagaon (82%) - topped in the voter turnout, the Warangal West segment which is known as educational hub, more urbanised compared to others barring constituencies in Hyderabad, continued its poor run by recording just 54 per cent. In last five elections, the voter turnout in Warangal West constituency (earlier known as Hanamkonda) had never touched 60 per cent. The voter turnout in 2014 was 57.56 per cent.   

The voter turnout in Warangal East was 69 per cent and Wardhannapet 72 per cent, it’s learnt. The EVMs did not function at Aminabad village of Narasampet constituency and Ravulapalli village in Bhupalpally constituency.

The EVMs also gave a tough time for the technical staff at Suraram village under Mahadevpur mandal of Bhupalpally constituency. The authorities replaced EVMs at Nugur Venkatapuram, due to which voters had to wait for more than an hour. Polling came to an end in Mulugu and Bhupalpally constituencies falling in the agency at 4 pm due to security reasons.

Meanwhile, the final polling percentage of other constituencies in Jangaon, Mahabubabad, Warangal Rural and Warangal Urban were not available till 7 pm as there were queues still at some polling booths. The Information and Public Relations Deputy Director Y Venkateswarlu said that authorities are working on compiling the final statistics of poll-related data.

A mild tension prevailed at Chinnakodepaka village under Regonda mandal in Jayashankar-Bhupalapally district due to an altercation between the villagers and the security personnel over people gathering near the polling station. The timely intervention of the police calmed down the situation. Later, Superintendent of Police R Bhaskaran visited the village to take stock of the situation. Meanwhile, P Swamy (55) of Paidipally village in Warangal mandal died after casting his vote. He collapsed on his way back to home after casting his vote.