Brisk Polling Underway In Telangana

Heavy polling is underway for the 17 Lok Sabha and 119 Assembly constituencies in the Telangana region.

Long queues of voters are being seen at all polling booths across Telangana.

The excitement of electing the first government of Telangana was quite visible among the voters, who started queuing up at the polling stations since 7am on Wednesday.

The first-time voters looked more excited to exercise their voting rights. They proudly waved their fingers with the ink marks after coming out of the polling booths.

Governor E S L Narasimhan and his wife Vimala Narasimhan cast their votes at a polling booth at Raj Nagar of M S Maktha.

TDP Chief N Chandrababu Naidu, BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreyya and other political figures also cast their votes along with family members.

Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwarlal cast his vote at the polling station at the IAS Officers Colony.

As many as 2.81 crores of voters will seal the fates of 1,669 candidates for the Assembly seats and 265 candidates for the Parliament seats in Telangana.

About 90,000 security personnel have been deployed for the smooth conduct of polling. 4 helicopters of the Indian Air Force have also been stationed in districts for contingencies.

Although many new and old parties are in the fray, Telangana is witnessing a triangular contest in most of the seats between the Congress, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the 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 and MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. (INN)