HYDERABAD: In what could be a record of sorts in the country, a massive 164 candidates are in the fray for the two graduate constituencies of the legislative council of Telangana, going to the polls on March 14.
As many as 93 candidates will be trying their luck for the Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahbubnagar seat and 71 contestants will fight it out for the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda seat. These figures are three times more than the number of candidates who had fought the elections in 2015.
With such large number of candidates in the fray, political parties are keeping their fingers crossed. The primary reason being there will be no party symbol on the ballot paper. Also, it will be difficult for voters to identify candidates in the jumbo ballot paper unless his or her face is familiar to them.
Another worrying factor is that a candidate should get at least 50% of valid votes and one extra vote to be declared the winner. If none of the candidates get 50% votes, second preference votes will be taken into consideration.
Election Commission officials said that only the name, party affiliation and photograph of the candidate will be published on the ballot paper. “Not having the party symbol on the ballot paper is a concern. During the campaign, party leaders must invariably show the photograph of the candidate,” a senior TRS leader said.
Chief electoral officer Shashank Goel said, “Our officers are talking to the State Election Commission (SEC) and other states to get jumbo ballot boxes for the polling,” he told STOI on Saturday.
In the 2015 graduates MLC polls, 31 candidates from Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahbubnagar and 22 from Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda seats were in the fray. “As many as 180 candidates, including 170 farmers, were in the fray from Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat in 2019. Similarly, 480 candidates had contested from Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat in 1996 elections to highlight the fluoride problem. But, it is the first time that such a large number of nominations have been filed in an MLC election,” a senior SEC official said.
With advocates, teachers’ unions and small registered parties’ candidates trying their luck, all major parties are worried that they will eat into their candidates’ votes. “If the photographs are not printed properly or persons have similar features, there is every chance of votes getting polled for other candidate,” a party general secretary said.
Sources said independent candidates filed nominations in the hope that second preference votes will help them win the election.
The TRS had lost some seats in both 2018 assembly and 2019 general elections due to symbol confusion among the voters. The party got ‘truck’ symbol removed from the independent candidates’ symbols as it resembled its ‘car’ symbol and had led to some of its candidates facing a defeat.