Telangana: Counting for Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll on May 2 with Covid-19 protocol

HYDERABAD: The counting of votes for Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll will commence at 8am on Sunday. Postal ballots would be counted first followed by the votes polled on electronic voting machines.
Though the women voters are more than men voters in this constituency, it is the male voters who outnumbered female electorate in terms of having casted their vote on April 17 when Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll voting was held.
Of the 1.89 lakh votes polled, over 95,000 were men voters compared to over 94,000 women electorate. The total voters in the constituency are over 2.20 lakh including 1.09 lakh male and 1.11 lakh female electors.
A Covid-19 negative test report is mandatory to enter into the counting for every one including officials, contestants, polling agents among others. All the counting arrangements are being made in tune with the Covid-19 guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India.
The district collector has imposed section 144 and said public gathering in groups is not allowed at the counting centre. As per ECI guidelines, victory rallies are not permitted. Counting of votes would be taken up in large two halls. Each hall will have seven tables.
Officials said, the counting of votes is likely to be completed in 25 rounds by 2pm. In all, 400 officials would be involved in counting and its related exercise. The mock counting was successfully completed on Saturday.
There are 41 candidates including three women in electoral fray from Nagarjuna Sagar assembly constituency which went to bypoll on April 17. As much as 86.18 per cent of polling was registered in 346 polling centres. Over 300 personnel police security has been thrown in and around the counting centre. The counting centre is being sanitized thrice daily.
The Nagarjuna Sagar constituency has always witnessed a straight contest between two political parties with the winner and runners up sharing between them over 88 per cent of the total votes polled, leaving the third placed party (candidate) with not much vote share.
This bypoll is crucial for all the three main parties of TRS, Congress and BJP. The TRS which won the seat in December-2018 had polled 46.34 per cent of the votes with the Congress garnering 42.04 per cent vote share and the BJP 1.48 per cent of the total votes.