2 killed in Andhra; EVM glitches, names ‘missing’
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, April 11
Two workers of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSR Congress (YSRCP) were killed in a clash at Veerapuram village in the Tadipatri Assembly constituency of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh. Similar skirmishes were reported in other parts of the state. Polling in Telangana was largely peaceful, but voters were disappointed at several places on finding their names missing.
Initial reports put the polling percentage in Telangana at 60.57 per cent and Andhra at 65 per cent. Andhra Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasad was reportedly attacked in Sattenapali constituency of Guntur district. In Puthalapattu, police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse TDP and YSRCP workers. In Narasaraopet, sitting MLA and YSRCP candidate Gopireddy Srinivasa Reddy sustained injuries in an attack. A Jana Sena Party candidate was arrested for allegedly damaging an EVM while several YSRCP polling agents reportedly vandalised EVMs at the Panakalapalem polling centre in Guntur district.
In Hyderabad, where AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi is contesting for a fourth term in Parliament, there was a clash between AIMIM and Congress workers.
Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu wrote to the ECI, demanding re-elections at several places where EVMs did not function till 9.30 am. But CEO Gopal Krishna Dwivedi issued an appeal to the voters, saying they should not believe such “rumours”.
Many voters said they found their names missing from the voters lists even though they had voted in the December 2018 Assembly elections. Shobhana Kamineni of Apollo Hospitals was one of them.
Andhra Pradesh CM Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh, the TDP candidate from Mangalagiri segment, said: “No developed country is using EVMs as these are prone to manipulation. We have, therefore, demanding that we revert to the ballot paper.” This is the first election in Andhra after the state’s bifurcation in 2014.
In Telangana’s Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency, where K Kavitha, daughter of chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is among 185 in the fray, the ECI used 12 EVMs in each polling booth linked to a single control unit in each of the 1,778 polling centres, a record of sorts.
