Hyderabad: Voting in the Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh was marred by incidents of violence and clashes between supporters of the rival Telugu Desam and YSR Congress parties, which left at least one person dead and more than a dozen injured.
However, this did not dampen the enthusiasm and excitement of the voters, with more than 75 per cent of the 37 million voters turning out to elect the first state government and 25 Lok Sabha members after the division of the state.
Kadapa, the home district of YSRCP President Jaganmohan Reddy witnessed several incidents of violent, including attacks on the police officials on duty. Two YSRCP assembly candidates were separately arrested in Anantapur and Guntur districts.
Despite elaborate security arrangements involving 120,000 police personnel and paramilitary members, Maoists attacked a polling station in Palkagiri village in Paderu Assembly constituency and snatched two electronic voting machines.
Local people said at least 35 armed Maoists were involved in this attack.
Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal told the media in Hyderabad that re-polling will take place in Palkagiri.
Paderu along with Araku were the two assembly constituencies where the polling came to an end first at 4pm, while it continued up to 5pm in eight other sensitive constituencies. The remaining 165 assembly constituencies kept voting stations open until 6pm.
Polling was also affected by unseasonal rains in Tirupati and Vijayawada.
Meanwhile, the Telugu Desam Party alleged that its two assembly candidates, Ramasubba Reddy in Jammalamadugu and P. Sudhakar Yadav in Mydukuru, came under attack from the YSRCP workers and their vehicles were damaged.
A similar incident took place in Basikpuram village of Narsaraopeta parliamentary constituency where YSRCP workers allegedly attacked TDP candidate Rayapati Sambasiva Rao and his car was damaged.
“The district administration has failed in providing security and ensuring free and fair elections,” said Rayapati who switched loyalty from Congress to the TDP before the elections.
Angered over the attack TDP candidate Ramasubba Reddy staged a dharna in Jammalamadugu and additional police reinforcements were rushed there.
Two senior police officers also came under attack in these two constituencies. Special superintendent of police Rajesh Kumar and a constable in Jammalamadugu were attacked allegedly by YSRCP members.
Another superintendent of police, Appala Naidu, also came under attacked in Devagudi village in Kadapa.
Inspector-General of Police Naveen Chand, strongly condemning the incidents, said cases had been opened.
“Police showed restraint to keep the situation under control,” he said.
The Telugu Desam lodged several complaints with the election commission, accusing the YSRCP of electoral malpractices and rigging. But the YSRCP also made similar allegations against the TDP-BJP alliance.
Though there were other parties including Congress and Jai Samakiya Andhra Party in the fray the contest was mainly between YSRCP and TDP.
In Visakhapatnam, where the state BJP President K. Hari Babu was pitted against Jagan’s mother Vijayalakshmi of YSRCP, BJP also lodged a complaint with the city police commissioner and election commission that the YSRCP was indulging in massive rigging.
