Phase 1 Parishad polls peaceful, 85% cast their votes

Khammam: The first phase of MPTC and ZPTC polls ended in a peaceful way in the district on Monday. The first phase of elections were held in seven mandals Kamepalli, Khammam Rural, Kusumanchi, Mudigonda, Nelakondapalli, Singareni and Thirumalayapalem of the district. A total of 41 candidates were in the fray for seven ZPTC seats and 335 candidates for 110 MPTC seats.

While Vallaba 1 and Vallaba 2 MPTC seats were elected unanimously in the Mudigonda mandal, the polling was held for all other seats except for the two. The polling process started on Monday at 7 am and ended at 5 pm. Police officers were posted at the polling stations since Sunday afternoon and they took all steps to prevent any untoward incidents.

The polling went slowly in all the seven mandals in the morning hours with polling percentage recording at 10 per cent for the first three hours. After 11 am, the polling percentage gradually increased. People showed enthusiasm in exercising their voting rights.

District officials were able to conduct the polling effectively in the 629 polling stations in 237 polling locations. There were 2,99,363 voters in seven mandals, of which 1,46,897 were men, 1,52,461 were women and five belonged to third gender. When the polling was concluded, it was announced that 85.74 per cent voters have exercised their franchise.