65% vote in Telangana, sleeping beauty Hyderabad refuses to wake up, again

HYDERABAD: Expect Greater Hyderabad's low turnout to once again drag down Telangana's overall voting percentage. The loud shouting matches by almost all political leaders in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election in the state did not enthuse voters especially in the city with many choosing to remain indoors especially in large urban pockets.

According to the data released by the ECI voter turnout app Monday midnight, about 64.9% of the voters had cast their votes. These are provisional numbers and the final voting percentages are expected only on Tuesday after the Election Commission compiles the data from all polling booths. In 2019, 62.77% of the voters had voted. Officials are expecting the number to be slightly higher this time.

Voting was slow for the one assembly by-election in the state - Secunderabad Cantonment Board - as well with just about 47.8% voters turning up till 5 pm.

Even as many polling booths in Greater Hyderabad wore a deserted look, the drama, if any, was provided by two BJP candidates, K Madhavi Latha in Hyderabad and D Aravind in Nizamabad who doubted the identity of Muslim women lining up to vote in burqas.

While Madhavi Latha insisted on seeing the women's faces and checked their identity cards, Aravind argued with polling booth officials over the need to check identities. This also sparked a controversy with chief minister A Revanth Reddy accusing Madhavi Latha of trying to polarise voters.

The missing enthusiasm was seen in constituencies like Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Malkajgiri, and Chevella, with Hyderabad recording the lowest turnout at 39.1% till 5.30 pm. In 2019, only 44.8% of the voters got inked here. Workers of some of the parties, including AIMIM, had gone door-to-door in the Old City asking people not to miss out on voting, but this seemed to have very little impact.
Bhongir, on the other hand, saw the highest turnout at 72.3%.

Apart from EVMS suffering minor glitches in select booths and isolated incidents of party workers accusing each other of trying to bribe voters, polling was peaceful in the state.

Prominent political figures and celebrities, including Revanth, former chief minister and BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Union minister G Kishan Reddy, exercised their franchise at diferent polling booths.

Polling in Telangana done, verdict on June 4
Former vice-president Venkaiah Naidu, and actors like Chiranjeevi and Mahesh Babu were seen lining up outside their polling booths.

With this, Telangana’s high-decibel, high stakes election has finally ended and the fates of top leaders like Kishan Reddy and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi have been sealed. The outcome of the election on June 4 will shape the political landscape in Telangana and will decide the future of many top guns.

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