Amid the EVM glitches, a Jana Sena candidate reportedly threw a voting machine on the floor as the names of Assembly and Parliament constituencies were not being displayed properly.
Amaravathi: Voters queued up in considerable numbers at polling stations to exercise their franchise as voting to elect 175 Assembly, and 25 Lok Sabha members in Andhra Pradesh began at 7 am Thursday (April 11).
As many as 50 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) had glitches resulting in some delay in polling, an official said.
Several EVMs in West Godavari's Iragavaram and the EVMs at Sramika Vidya Peeth, Mogalarajapuram were reported to be not functioning as usual. Meanwhile, several polling stations in Guntur also reported on the EVM's technical glitches.
On the other side, Jana Sena candidate was arrested by the police officials after he reportedly threw an EVM on the floor as the names of Assembly and Parliament constituencies were not being displayed properly. The Jana Sena candidate is identified as Madhusudan Gupta and had been to Gutti to cast his vote. According to reports, it is said that the EVM machine was completely damaged after throwing it down on the floor.
TDP functionaries were also seen damaging a polling station at Narasaraopet in Andhra Pradesh.
However, state chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his family members exercised their franchise at a polling station in Undavalli village in the state capital region Amaravathi.
YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy cast his vote in his native Pulivendula in Kadapa district, from where he is seeking re-election.
State Chief Electoral Officer Gopal Krishna Dwivedi cast his vote in Tadepalli.
According to reports, there are a total of 3,93,45,717 registered voters in the state in which 1,94,62,339 are male, 1,98,79,421 are female and 3,957 are transgenders. Among these voters, 10.15 lakh 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.
Polling would end at 5 pm in the Left-wing extremism-affected areas, mostly those bordering Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
Last Updated Apr 11, 2019, 11:24 AM IST