11.2 percent polling recorded till 9 am in Munugode by-poll

A voting percentage of 11.2 percent was recorded in the first two hours of the Munugode by-poll, which is turning out to be one the most monitored, officially, in Telangana, and perhaps in the country as well.

Vikas Raj, Chief Electoral Officer, Telangana, in an interview to a national television channel, said arrangements were in place for non-stop monitoring of the polling in Munugode, with CCTVs installed all over the constituency and webcasting arranged from every polling booth, with officials keeping a watch from district, State and Central levels.

With accusations of the election campaign being one of the costliest in the country and several cash seizures, a record number of teams were deployed to control these issues, he said.

As of Wednesday, Rs.8.02 crore was seized, including cash, gold and even saris, while there was a seizure of 5000 litres of liquor. Over the last one month, 111 belt shops were closed



with 128 officials being deployed exclusively to arrest liquor flow.

Reports were there of digital payments, but the Commission’s intelligence has not said that, Vikas Raj said, adding that there were more than 500 complaints over the last one month, all of which were enquired into. There were 51 teams for that purpose alone, while Revenue and police teams with cameras controlled from a central control room were still on the job.

There were 185 cases booked on the basis of complaints, while 90 persons were arrested so far.

Compared to other elections, Vikas Raj said multiple measures were introduced for Munugode, with the number of model code of conduct monitoring teams being 14 as against the usual three. There were 14 flying squads 14 as against the norm of 3, while there were two election expenditure observers, seven officers from the IT dept and a GST team as well.