CM, Ministers Vote In MLC Elections; Congress Boycotts

TRS supremo and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao today cast his vote in the elections for five MLC seats under the MLA quota held at the Assembly premises.

The Chief Minister reached the Assembly in the morning and exercised his franchise at the polling centre in Committee Hall one.

Most TRS MLAs also arrived minutes after the polling began at 9 am in special buses from Telangana Bhavan. TRS Working President and Sircilla MLA K T Rama Rao led the TRS legislators into the Assembly premises. KCR, Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and a few other MLAs arrived separately in their personal vehicles at around the same time.

As many as 91 MLAs of the TRS exercised their franchise, and seven MIM MLAs too cast their votes during the day.

However, the main opposition, the Congress party, boycotted the MLC elections in protest against the defections of its MLAs allegedly engineered by the ruling party.

Though the TPCC had fielded its treasurer Gudur Narayan Reddy for an MLC seat, he later withdrew from the fray due to the Congress lacking the votes of 21 MLAs required for him to win.

The TRS has fielded four candidates - Home Minister Mahmood Ali, S Subhash Reddy, Sathyavathi Rathod and Yegge Mallesham - and the MIM nominated Mirza Riyaz ul Hasan Effendi for the fifth seat. All those five candidates are set to win the elections as they have the adequate number of MLA votes.