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Agencies

GHMC polls 2020: Union minister Kishan Reddy, Asaduddin Owaisi among early voters to exercise franchise
01-December-2020

The voting for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls started on Tuesday (December 1) at 7 AM and will conclude at 6 PM. More than 74 lakh voters will exercise their franchise to decide the political fate of 1,122 candidates in 150 divisions in GHMC. Elaborate arrangements have been made to conduct the polls in a free and fair manner. The mayor's post is reserved for a woman this time. The Telangana State Election Commission (SEC) has made elaborate arrangements for the balloting process by deploying 48,000 (including reserve) polling personnel and 52,500 strong police force. The Commission had decided to conduct the election with ballot papers after obtaining the views of major political parties, Health department in view of COVID-19 and taking into consideration various relevant issues.

In the Hyderabad city commissionerate, 817 new polling stations have been set up as compared to 2016. There are 2,146 normal polling stations, 1,517 sensitive polling stations and 167 hypersensitive polling stations. Anjani Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad city while speaking on GHMC elections stated, "We have made all security arrangements with 22,000 policemen for GHMC elections. We have briefed the police personnel four times. We have set up tight police security in all areas as per State Election Commission guidelines."

A total of 1,122 candidates are in the fray. Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is contesting all seats, BJP has fielded candidates in 149 divisions, Congress in 146, TDP in 106, MIM in 51, CPI in 17 and CPI-M in 12 divisions.

Other recognized parties have fielded 76 candidates while 415 independents are also testing their political fortunes.