Men and women wait in queue to cast their votes during the fourth phase of Lok Sabha election in a polling station in Hyderabad on May 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
Bhongir Lok Sabha constituency covering Yadadri-Bhongir district displayed its voter awareness on Monday by recording 75.81% voter turnout.
Voter turnout was high in all the Assembly segments of Munugode (83.51%), Bhongir (81.74%), Alair (82.52%, while Nakrekal (SC), Thungathurthi (SC), and Jangaon, recorded over 70%. The least among them was in Ibrahimpatnam segment at 66.81%.
The constituency has a contest among Congress party’s Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy, Bharatiya Janata Party’s B. Narsaiah Goud, Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s Kyama Mallesh and CPI(M)’s Mahamd Jahangir, and others.
According to initial reports, there were technical snags in setting up EVMs and starting the procedure. But the process continued smoothly for the rest of the day. Voting by 9 a.m. was over 10%, and incrementally rose by about 28% by 11 a.m., 46% by 1 p.m., and 72.34% till last reports came at 5 p.m.
There were isolated incidents of protests, timed with the purchase of paddy harvest and rains. Farmers in Kanumukkala village of Bhoodan Pochampally staged a protest outside the polling station and raised ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ slogans, and gave a call to boycott the polls. The issue was resolved after officials intervened and pacified the farmers.
Rachakonda Police Commissioner Tarun Joshi and DCP (Bhongir zone) M. Rajesh Chandra, who inspected various polling stations, said polling was peaceful and incident-free. The critical polling stations in the constituency were manned by an additional 2,500 personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces.
In the past elections too, Bhongir constituency recorded one of the highest voter turnouts. In 2019, it stood at 74.48%, in 2014 with 81.21%, the constituency topped the voter-turnout chart in the State along with Khammam and Mahbubabad.
