The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced, the voting time in the Nizamabad constituency will be extended, ahead of the Telangana Lok Sabha elections.
Rajat Kumar, the Chief Election Officer (CEO) of Telangana, said, due to the high number of candidates in the Nizamabad constituency, the ECI decided to give an hour extra to the voters.
Telangana is scheduled to conduct the Lok Sabha elections, on the 11th of April, from 7:00 A.M., to 5:00 P.M., whereas in Nizamabad, the elections will be held from 8:00 A.M., to 6:00 P.M.
In Nizamabad, approximately 185 candidates filed their nomination as Member of Parliament (MP) candidates, out of which, 179 are farmers.
The farmers in Nizamabad filed nominations to contest the Lok Sabha elections to protest against Kalvakuntla Kavitha, the MP of Nizamabad and a member of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS.)
The farmers’ reason behind filing the nominations is their disappointment with the ruling Government of Telangana, the TRS.
The Telangana Government failed in bringing turmeric farming under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and in forming a National Turmeric Board. The MSP would benefit the farmers of the District, as they could then get a good profit from turmeric agriculture.
The farmers recently filed a petition in the Telangana High Court, asking the Court to order the ECI to postpone the elections, as the farmers did not get enough time to campaign for the elections.
The ECI denied the request and scheduled a meeting with the farmers, where the ECI officials cleared the doubts of the farmers regarding the polls and helped them understand the process in detail.
The farmers, who are contesting as independent candidates, were satisfied with the clarifications and are all set to contest against Kavitha.
When asked about the demands of the farmers, Ms. Kavitha said, she has faith in the farmers of Nizamabad and the ones who are against the TRS are the supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC.)
Speaking about the polling arrangements in Nizamabad, Mr. Kumar said, “FLC (First Level Checking) and candidates setting in 2209 sets (each comprising 12 Ballot Units,1 Control Unit and 1 VVPAT, which takes 6 hours of time for each set, has been successfully completed and all machines are ready to be dispatched.” He further said, “Although the number of polling stations is 1788, a few extra sets of BUs, CUs and VVPATs are being kept ready to be sent immediately wherever technical issues are seen.”
The Nizamabad constituency, which has a total of 1,788 polling stations, will use ballot paper for voting in the upcoming Telangana Lok Sabha elections.
The Telangana Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to be held on the 11th of April for a total of 17 Lok Sabha seats.
The major parties contesting the Telangana Lok Sabha elections are the TRS, the INC and the BJP.
The results of the Telangana Lok Sabha elections will be announced on the 23rd of May 2019.
Stay tuned for further updates about the Telangana Lok Sabha elections.
