Monday morning in Secunderabad Cantonment was abuzz with excitement as residents geared up to cast not one, but two votes. In this constituency where a bypoll was necessitated due to death of the sitting legislator, voters had the double delight of participating in both the election of their Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) as well as their Member of Parliament (MP).
The bypoll was announced as a result of the death of former MLA Lasya Nanditha in a road accident in February this year.
As the day unfolded, voter turnout started slow, registering at 6.28% by 9 a.m., but gradually gained momentum, reaching 16.34% by 11 a.m., then 29.03% by 1 p.m. By 3 p.m., it had surged to 39.92% and finally capped at 47.88% by 5 p.m. This year’s turnout is almost the same as compared to 47.14% in the 2023 Telangana assembly elections.
For many like Rajesh Reddy, a Marredpally resident, dual voting was a first-time experience. “This is the first time in my life that I am at a polling station where I will be voting twice. Nobody informed me how the process is going to be but when I arrived, the booth agents informed me that once I enter the room, there will be two Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) where we have to vote one after the other,” he shared. However, the voters got the index finger inked only once.
At the Government Institute of Electronics in East Marredpally, a diverse crowd, spanning from first-time voters to octogenarians, thronged from morning till afternoon, eager to exercise their democratic right. Madhuri Rao, an IT employee who missed voting in the Assembly elections last year, expressed her satisfaction at being able to cast her vote this time around. “I was not in town during the Assembly elections which took place in November last year and I was not happy about it. I had planned then that whatever happens, I will vote in the Lok Sabha elections but it’s good that I got to exercise my Assembly election vote again,” she said.
Each voter had their own unique take on the experience. Ram Yadav, the owner of a sweet shop in Sikh Village, described it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
