The mandal (MPTC) and Zilla Parishad territorial constituency (ZPTC) elections were held across the state of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday. The vote of one young voter who voted in the elections, however, was disqualified even before counting began after it surfaced that he had taken a selfie with his ballot paper and shared the same on social media. The incident occurred on April 8 in the Pallamkurru polling station of the East Godavari district. According to a report in The Hindu, the youth by the name of Kasi Venkataramana assigned his vote and then took a selfie with the ballot paper, causing his vote to get disqualified.
The vote was declared invalid by East Godavari Collector and District Election Officer D. Muralidhar Reddy who said that Kasi’s act of taking and making public a selfie with the ballot paper flouted election rules as it was in violation of the Model Code of Conduct under the Panchayat Raj Act 1994. Not only was his vote cancelled, but an investigation has also been launched against Kazi in the matter.
During preliminary questioning by officials, Kazi maintained that he had not taken the photograph.
The MPTC and ZPTC election results will be declared after the counting of votes on April 10. Over 63 per cent polling was reported in the elections to mandal and zilla parishad territorial constituencies in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, which Panchayat Raj Principal Secretary Gopal Krishna Dwivedi termed “remarkably successful”.
Stray incidents of clashes were reported from a few districts but overall the polling went off smoothly, official sources in the State Election Commission here said. Polling was stalled in a couple of places because of faulty ballot papers.
(With inputs from PTI)
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