Hyderabad: The counting for the now-concluded elections for the two vacant seats in the state legislative council from graduate constituencies of Mahabubnagar-Ranga Reddy-Hyderabad and Warangal-Nalgonda-Khammam is currently underway.
Counting is taking place at Saroornagar Indoor Stadium in Hyderabad and Telangana State Warehousing Corporation warehouse at Arjalabavi in Nalgonda. It began at 8 am on Wednesday.
The final result is expected on Thursday as big-sized ballot papers and jumbo ballot boxes were used for polling in view of a large number of candidates in the fray.
Polling was held on March 14 for the two constituencies. While the Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad seat witnessed 67.26 per cent of polling, the voter turnout was 76.41 per cent in the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency. The total number of voters in the two constituencies together is over 10 lakh.
Here’s how counting takes place
The entire process would be a lengthy affair since each jumbo ballot box contains 500 to 800 votes. The first preference votes will be counted and will be ascertained for a majority. This will take over 24 hours.
Any candidate securing 50 per cent of the total valid votes plus one first preference vote will get elected in the first round itself.
If that doesn’t happen, second preference votes will be considered for counting, and then the third preference votes. There would be an elimination process if none of the contestants get more than 50 per cent of the valid votes.
After the votes in 25 postal ballots are counted, the ballot papers from each polling station will be tied in bundles of 25 or 50. As of 6 pm on Wednesday, bundling of those in 430 boxes out of 799 boxes was completed.
Voting will only begin after all the ballot papers from all stations are bundled.
As many as 3,600 polling staff are deputed for counting votes in both the counting stations and officials prepared a duty roster to enable the staff to work in shifts until voting continues.