Andhra Pradesh   

Civic polls: counting today

Special Correspondent

Election results to be out within the first two hours

HYDERABAD: As the official machinery gears up to count the votes polled in the civic elections in Andhra Pradesh, the fate of the contesting candidates and the political parties will be known within the first two hours on Monday.

With the re-poll in six wards and divisions in the Kamareddy, Bodhan, Samalkot and Chittoor municipalities besides one division each in the Kadapa and Warangal corporations, passing off peacefully barring an incident, the decks have been cleared for counting of votes.

Counting of votes for the 96 municipalities and 11 corporations will begin at 8 a.m. and results may start pouring in from 10 a.m.

During re-poll on Sunday, Samalkot recorded 74.54 per cent polling followed by Warangal (73.75), Chittoor (67.10), Kadapa (60.48), Kamareddy (47.85) and Bodhan (52.78). During re-poll in the Samalkot Municipality, the gunman of the Congress MLA, Thota Gopalakrishna, opened fire in the air to disperse a mob, which tried to attack him. The MLA and his son were on their way to ward 24 when TDP workers allegedly tried to attack them. Sensing trouble, the gunman, Suryanarayana, opened fire in the air to disperse the mob.

The State Election Commissioner (SEC), A. V. S. Reddy, said all arrangements had been made for counting. "The results will be out within two hours," he said. The victorious candidates would be issued election certificates and a letter informing them about the election of chairpersons and Mayors on September 30.

A control room has been opened in the State Election Commission where 16 result compilation officers have been deputed for gathering the results. Collectors have been instructed to appoint a liaison officer for each municipality and corporation to convey poll results to the control room in Hyderabad.

The final poll percentage in municipalities was 69.16 and 55.23 for the corporations. The Repalle Municipality in Guntur district recorded 82.43 per cent polling, followed by Pedana in Krishna district with 80.37 per cent.

Among the corporations, Eluru topped with a turnout of 63.34 per cent and Kurnool recorded only 46.73 per cent.

Cases against MLAs

The commissioner said that cases had been filed against the Congress MLAs — Anam Vivekananda Reddy and Anam Ramnarayan Reddy and the Amalapuram MP, G. V. Harsha Kumar, for allegedly assaulting TDP workers, mediapersons and an SI.

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