With 185 in fray, ballot papers to be used in Nizamabad

Hyderabad, March 28
Ballot papers will be used for polling in Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana as 185 candidates, a majority of them farmers, remained in fray for the next month's elections, officials said.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao's daughter K. Kavitha is seeking re-election from the constituency, where the Congress has once again fielded Madhu Yaskhi Goud.

With the deadline for withdrawal of nominations coming to an end on Thursday, Chief Electoral Officer Rajath Kumar said 185 candidates, including 178 farmers, remained in fray in Nizamabad.

Turmeric and red sorghum farmers filed their nominations en masse to highlight their problems, especially with regard to remunerative prices.

As Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be used for a maximum of 64 candidates, the authorities will have to use ballot papers for polling in Nizamabad.

Rajath Kumar said the arrangements for conduct of polling with ballot papers were still under discussion and a final decision would be taken by the Election Commission.

He also said a total of 443 candidates were in fray for all 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state, going to polls on April 11. Medak constituency has only 10 candidates.


1 in 4 Indian voters doubts EVM's authenticity: Survey

About 25 per cent of young Indian voters are doubtful of the authenticity of the electronic voting machine (EVM), according to a new survey by news app Inshorts.

An overwhelming 85 of the participants in the survey said voting should be made compulsory.

"Nowadays, people are aware about their rights and consider voting a responsibility as citizens," Inshorts CEO Azhar Iqbal said in a statement.

The survey is based on responses from two lakh Inshorts subscribers across the country in March.

The majority of participants were from Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. The participants mainly represent urban millennials, aged between 18 to 35 years.

Over 46 per cent Indian voters think that option of NOTA (None of The Above) is not functioning well to bring out the purpose of voting, the study showed.

As high as 45 per cent of voters in the survey cited that they will not be traveling back for elections if away from their home towns, indicating how big the issue of "lost votes" is in the country.

More than 50 per cent of the voters residing in Delhi/NCR will not be going back to their home towns for elections, as per the survey.

The same trend was observed in other cities too, such as Mumbai (47 per cent) and Pune (45 per cent).

While 85 per cent Indian voters said that voting should be made compulsory but only 63 per cent cast their votes every time without fail.

Three-fourths of Indian voters stated in the survey that they do extensive research about each candidate before voting for them to win from their constituency.