Polling ends in 16 LS constituencies of Telangana

Barring Nizamabad, polling for the Lok Sabha seats in Telangana ended peacefully at 5 p.m on Thursday.

About 49 per cent voter turnout was recorded in all 17 constituencies till 5 p.m. The final polling percentage will be known late in the evening.

Polling in 13 Maoist-affected Assembly segments under five Lok Sabha constituencies ended at 4 p.m.

In Nizamabad, a record number of EVMs are being used to accommodate 185 candidates, and the polling will continue till 6 p.m.

Chief Electoral Officer Rajath Kumar said those standing in queues would be allowed to vote, irrespective of the time this would take.

Nearly 2.97 crore voters were eligible to cast their votes to decide the fortunes of 443 candidates including 25 women.

The election authorities had set up 46,120 polling stations and deployed three lakh personnel including about a lakh security men as part of the elaborate arrangements.

Telangana Chief Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K. Chandrashekhar Rao's daughter K. Kavitha, senior TRS leader Vinod Kumar, state Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, former Union Minister Renuka Chowdary (Congress) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President Asaduddin Owaisi were among the prominent candidates.

The counting of votes will be taken up on May 23 after completion of the polling process across the state.

In 2014, the TRS had bagged 11 seats while the Congress secured two seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Telugu Desam Party (TDP), AIMIM and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) had won a seat each.

The TDP and the YSRCP did not contest the elections in Telangana this time.

--IANS

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