Strongroom of Telangana Assembly segment reopened on HC order

Hyderabad: Four years after the election, the strongroom of Telangana’s Dharmapuri Assembly constituency was reopened on Monday on the orders of the Telangana High Court.

Hearing a petition for recounting of votes filed by Congress candidate Aduluri Laxman Kumar, the court had directed the poll officials to open the strongroom and submit the relevant documents to the court.

The officials opened the strongroom in the presence of Jagtial district collector Shaik Yasmeen Basha. The Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were kept under tight security at VRK College.

The Election Commission officials will submit 17A and 17C documents.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) candidate Koppula Eswar was declared elected by 441 votes. He 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.

Laxman remains hopeful that after examining the relevant documents pertaining to the polling percentage, the high court will order recounting.