5,326 voters to send six to Legislative Council seats under Local Authorities’ Constituencies today

HYDERABAD: All arrangements are in place for elections to the six vacant Legislative Council seats under Local Authorities’ Constituencies to be held on Friday. 

As many as 5,326 voters, representatives of local bodies, will exercise their franchise in 37 polling stations for the six seats in five segments - Adilabad, Nalgonda, Karimnagar, Khammam and Medak. The votes would be counted on December 14. 

As many as 26 candidates are in the fray for the six seats. While ten of these 26 candidates are vying for two seats in Karimnagar segment, seven aspirants are looking to grab the one seat in Nalgonda segment. 
The TRS candidates are facing tough fight in Adilabad, Medak and Karimnagar segments.  Meanwhile, differences have cropped in Adilabad Congress whether to participate in the polling or not.

While AICC member and former MLC K Premsagar Rao said in Macherial that the party would be boycotting the poll, district Congress president Sajid Khan said that the Congress elected representatives would take part in the polls and vote for the independent candidate to ensure defeat of the TRS candidate.  Speaking to reporters Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shashank Goel said that cameras or mobiles would not be allowed into the polling stations. The CEO also said that officials were looking into complaints that some political parties had organised camps for the voters.

Elsewhere in Khammam, leaders of some political parties backed the call by separate Telangana activists to test the people’s representatives who had been shifted to a camp in Goa for Covid-19. 

The activists said that the TRS planned to shift these voters directly to polling booths from Hyderabad in buses arranged for the purpose. The TRS had shifted about 500 people representatives to Goa to avoid cross voting.