Telangana municipal elections: Heavy turnout witnessed amid incidents of clashes

HYDERABAD: Voting began in 120 municipalities and nine municipal corporations in Telangana on Wednesday amid stray incidents of minor clashes between supporters.
The State Election Commission said more than 30 per cent of votes were cast across all districts by noon.
The TRS swept the local body elections (gram panchayat and zilla parishad polls held in January and May 2019 respectively, but the Congress and BJP are hoping to dent the TRS citadel in the urban local body elections.
"I can’t walk and my health is in poor condition, but days before the polling date I insisted that I will exercise my voting rights," said 60-year-old Laxamma, who was carried by her relatives on a plastic chair inside a booth in Badangpet.
60-year-old Laxamma was carried by her relatives on a plastic chair inside a booth in Badangpet
A wide variety of voters could be seen exercising their franchise including the aged and young mothers. “I came out to vote over basic amenities such as water and roads,” said Shweta Kumari, who brought her three-month-old baby along, adding mosquitoes were also a major concern.
Shweta Kumari (in picture) brought her three-month-old baby to exercise her voting right
Polling was delayed in some polling booths of Yadadri and Wyra municipalities due to power supply issues.
Tempers flared at the polling booth for Manikonda ward 8 and 9 on Wednesday. TRS and BJP backers bickered over election agents trying to influence voters. As cops tried to keep a BJP poll agent at bay, and advised him to only observe every hour, he said that the TRS-backed election agent was being given a free hand to go in and out of the premises. Cops finally asked both to leave, till the situation calmed down.
A scuffle broke between TRS and Congress workers at ward 6 in Boduppal over the alleged distribution of money to voters.
Tight security measures were in place at all the polling booths. Member of Parliament Uttam Kumar Reddy and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy cast their votes at the respective districts early in the morning.
In Kompally, where the SEC launched a facial recognition application for civic polls at 10 booths on a pilot basis got a huge response.
Personnel of the Telangana State Technology Services (TSTS) who developed the app deployed specially trained people to guide voters.
“It's amazing and we didn’t have to wait for long to exercise our franchise. It's a good initiative,” said Dharani, a first-time voter.
Kompally municipal commissioner and assistant district election authority, MNR Jyothi said, "7,700 voters will vote using the newly-launched app. We initially faced some problems but it was rectified within a few minutes.”
Polling continued briskly with many IT staffers coming to cast their vote at Alkapur township. Several young techies could be seen coming in with their bags as they rushed off to work after voting.
Water remained the focus of voters across many areas.
"We were not given water supply even in peak summer last year. This year we hope the situation improves,” said Dr Sunil Kumar.
Polling began at 7am and will conclude at 5pm in 7,961 polling stations. Of the total 2,971 wards in the municipalities and corporations, elections to 83 wards were unanimous in favour of TRS. In the rest, 12,926 candidates are in the fray.
To ensure smooth and fair elections, video coverage and webcasting are being done in 6,500 polling stations.
Voters of Badangpet, Meerpet, and Bandlaguda on Monday reached polling stations to exercise their voting right.
Residents of Tellapur were irked as members from the same family were allotted different wards. “We are four voters from the same family, but were allotted two wards 10 and 11. This is very inconvenient. I cannot understand the reasoning behind how one family from the same address can belong to two wards,” said Shesha Prasad.