D-day for counting Sunday, All eyes on Munugode

The officials made all arrangements to the counting of votes polled at the Munugode by-poll held recently. The counting of votes will start at 8 am and completed by 1 pm on Sunday. The official result will be declared after 1 pm on the same day. The result of the first round may be declared within one hour after the counting started. The counting will be held in such a way that three to four rounds will be completed within one hour.

The arrangements for counting of votes were made at the godown of TS Warehousing Corporation at Arjalabhavi in Nalgonda where the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) were kept in strong rooms at the same place. As many as 15 rounds of counting will take place at a total 21 tables. The counting of votes will be started with counting of postal ballots at the table of Returning Officer. Later the votes registered in the EVMs will be counted. As many as 298 EVMs were utilized at 298 polling stations in 7 mandals across Munugode Assembly constituency on the polling day.

Counting of votes polled in Choutuppal mandal will be take place in first round followed by the votes polled in Samsthan Narayanpur, Munugode, Marriguda, Nampally and Gattuppal mandals in the later rounds.

The counting will take place in the presence of district election officer, district collector Vinay Krishna Reddy, returning officer Rohit Singh and three observers sent by the Election commission of India.

The by-poll to Munugode Assembly constituency has set the previous records straight and created a new record in poll percentage with a heavy turnout of 93.13% when the polling was held on Thursday.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj, 2,25,192 voters have exercised their franchise out of a total of 2,41,805 voters in the constituency.

The poll percentage in 2004 elections was recorded at 87.31%, it recorded as 77.15% in 2009, 82.15% in 2014 and the poll percentage was recorded as 91.31% in 2018 elections. By smashing out the previous records, the poll percentage registered as 93.13% in the recent poll to the Munugode Assembly constituency.

As many as 47 candidates were in the Munugode fray. But there is a triangular contest between the candidates for the TRS, BJP and Congress party. The pink party fielded former MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, sitting MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy was in contest on behalf of the saffron party and Palvai Sravanthi Reddy, daughter of Senior Congress leader Palvai Govardhan Reddy was fielded by grand old party in the Munugode by-poll.

The fate of the candidates will be decided in few hours.