India polls: EVM glitches reported from 50 places in Andhra

Andhra Pradesh is going to polls today to elect 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha members. Voters turned up in good numbers at the polling stations as the exercise began at 7:00am, even as EVM glitches were reported from some places.

Chief Electoral Officer Gopal Krishna Dwivedi, who cast his vote in Tadepalli, said there were complaints from about 50 places about technical glitches in EVMs. He said technical teams were on the job to rectify the defects and enable polling.

Among the early voters queuing up to ink their fingers at a polling station in Undavalli village were Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu and his family members. Naidu, his wife N Bhuvaneswari, son Nara Lokesh and daughter-in-law N Brahmani exercised their franchise at Undavalli in Mangalagiri Assembly constituency in Guntur district. Nara Lokesh is making his electoral debut on TDP ticket from the Mangalagiri Assembly segment that covers Undavalli.

Naidu is seeking re-election from Kuppam in Chittoor district.

Showing his inked finger to the media after coming out of the polling booth, Naidu said: "It is the duty of every citizen to participate in the democratic process by casting his vote."

This is the first time Naidu and his family voted in Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation. In the 2014 elections, they had voted in Hyderabad, the then capital of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy cast his vote at Pulivendula in Kadapa district, from where he is seeking re-election.

There are a total of 3,93,45,717 registered voters in Andhra Pradesh — 1,94,62,339 of them male, 1,98,79,421 female and 3,957 of them transgenders. As many as 10.15 lakh of them are first-time voters in the age group of 18-19.

As many as 2,118 and 319 candidates are in the fray for 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats respectively.

In the Left-wing extremism-affected areas, mostly those bordering Odisha and Chhattisgarh, polling will end at 5:00pm.

Copyright: The Statesman/ Asia News Network (ANN)