Officials break open strongroom of Telangana’s Dharmapuri Assembly segment

Hyderabad: Officials in Telangana’s Jagtial district on Sunday broke open the strongroom of Dharmapuri Assembly constituency on the direction of the Telangana High Court, which is hearing a petition for re-counting of votes polled in 2018 elections.

The strongroom at VRK College of Engineering and Technology in Nookapally village of Jagtial was broken open in the presence of Jagtial district collector Shaik Yasmeen Basha and other top officials as its missing keys could not be traced by the Election Commission of India officials.

The officials will submit the records pertaining to the polling percentage and votes secured by all candidates to the High Court.

The court had earlier directed the Election Commission to furnish CCTV footage and other records pertaining to counting of votes.

On April 10, the district collector and other officials had reached the strongroom to open it on the High Court’s order. However, the Election Commission officials found the keys missing. After the High Court was informed about the same, it directed officials to break open the room.

The Election Commission officials will submit 17A and 17C documents to the High Court, which is hearing petition Congress candidate Aduluri Laxman Kumar for recounting of votes.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) candidate Koppula Eswar was declared elected by 441 votes. Eswar is now a minister in the State Cabinet.

Eswar and Laxman secured 70,579 votes and 70,138 respectively.

Alleging that there were irregularities in the counting of votes, Laxman had filed a petition for setting aside Eswar’s election.

Last year, the Supreme Court had dismissed Eswar’s petition seeking a stay on the proceedings in the High Court

During the hearing of the case in the High Court, Laxman’s counsel had pointed out discrepancies. According to him, the returning officer in his report to the chief electoral officer said that the number of votes in all 269 polling stations was 1,65,209 which accounts for 79.96 per cent of polling. However, he claimed that as per the information furnished by authorities to them under the RTI Act, 1,65,341 votes were polled and the polling percentage was 80.02.