Students queue up to cast their vote in Khammam on Thursday
| Photo Credit: G.N. Rao
On a dull cloudy day, polling began on a slow note on Thursday morning for the 119 Telangana Assembly Constituencies. While some polling stations began functioning at 7 a.m., other polling stations like those in Erraboda in Rajendranagar Constituency began functioning at 7.20 a.m. A total of 2290 candidates are in fray including the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao, Telangana Congress president A Revanth Reddy, BJP leader Bandi Sanjay, cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin among others.
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Police threw a security cordon around the polling stations limiting the access to some stretches of roads. Community halls, government schools, private schools and function halls have been converted into polling stations to ensure easy access to voters. Civic workers marked out white lines to demarcate the outer limits beyond which volunteers and polling agents of political parties helped voters.
A total of 12,000 polling stations have been identified as critical and additional forces have been deployed there to keep voting free and fair. There are a total of 35,655 polling stations across the state.
