Heavy polling is underway for 17 Lok Sabha and 119 Assembly constituencies in Telangana region.
Long queues of voters are seen at all polling booths across Telangana. The excitement of electing first government of Telangana was quite visible among the voters who started queuing up at the polling stations since 7 AM on Wednesday. The first time voters looked more excited to exercise their power of vote. They proudly waved their fingers with ink mark after coming out of the polling booths.
Governor E S L Narasimhan and his wife Vimala Narasimhan cast their vote at a polling booth at the Raj Nagar of MS Maktha. TDP Chief N Chandrababu Naidu, BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreyya and other political figures cast their votes along with family members. Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwarlal cast his vote at the polling station at IAS Officers Colony.
As many as 2.81 crore voters will seal the fate of 1,669 candidates for Assembly and 265 candidates for Parliament seats in Telangana. About 90,000 security personnel have been deployed for the smooth conduct of polling. Four helicopters of the Indian Air Force have also been stationed in districts for contingencies.
Although many new and old parties are in the fray, the Telangana is witnessing a triangular contest in most of the seats between Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and Telugu Desam- Bharatiya Janata Party combine.
Prominent among those seeking election to Lok Sabha are Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy, TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, his daughter Kavitha, former Deputy CM C Damodara Rajanarasimha, Lok Satta Party president Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, former DGP V Dinesh Reddy, former IAS officer M Chaya Ratan, CPI state secretary K Narayana, MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and a host of others too are in the fray.