GHMC Elections: High Court Allows SEC To Count All Votes

In a significant development, the Telangana High Court today overturned a previous order regarding the counting of the votes cast in the recent GHMC elections, and allowed the State Election Commission (SEC) to count the ballots marked with signs other than the approved swastik stamp.

Dismissing a petition filed by the head of the BJP legal cell Antony Reddy asking for the disqualification of the ballots with different marks, it also issued orders to the returning officer of the GHMC's Neredmet division to declare the results of the division after counting the votes with different marks.

Explaining the verdict, the court pointed out that even the ballots with non-regulation marks would be able to convey the voters' intentions, and could therefore be counted as valid.

With this verdict, the SEC can now count 546 votes that had earlier been disqualified from the counting process. However, the inclusion of the previously invalid votes is unlikely to change the outcome of the elections in the division - the TRS candidate for the Neredmet seat had secured a majority of 504 votes, and it is likely that the same candidate will retain the lead after the counting.