The counting of votes for the
referendum conducted yesterday at 20 places across the city by senior Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao on the proposed construction of a new secretariat at Bison Polo Grounds, was held at Somajiguda Press Club today.
Of the 20,000 votes polled, 18,460 people cast their votes against the construction of a new secretariat, 387 voters voted for it, 142 votes were held invalid, and 39 voters wrote comments on the ballet paper.
Speaking on the occasion along with VHR, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee chief Uttam Kumar Reddy said that KCR's decision to construct a new secretariat, at a cost of Rs. 1,600 crores, was anti-people, and that the Congress was against it. Reddy said that the constructing a new secretariat was not a peoples' welfare activity, and was clearly a waste of public money. The voting pattern clearly showed that the people were against a new secretariat, he said. The existing secretariat buildings would suffice for another 100 years, and the government should in fact shift other offices located at various places across the city to the secretariat as half of the complex was vacant.
Reddy said that the Congress would conduct referendums on the issue even in the districts if needed.