Krishna district witnessed a voter turnout of over 66.11% in the municipal polls conducted for seven Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) on Wednesday. Of the 10,66,185 voters in the ULBs, over 7.04 lakh exercised their franchise.
The polling activity which began at 7 a.m. went on smoothly and concluded peacefully in the evening without any need for re-polling.
Polling was held for 222 wards in the seven ULBs, including Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (64 wards), Machilipatnam Municipal Corporation (49), Nuzvid Municipality (30), Pedana Municipality (23), Nandigama Nagara Panchayat (20), Tiruvuru Nagara Panchayat (18) and Vuyyuru Nagara Panchayat (18) in 1,111 polling booths. Candidates were elected unanimously in seven wards.
Pedana registered the highest voter turnout of 80.55% while Vijayawada registered the lowest turnout of 62.88%, as per the preliminary count declared by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.
The polling percentage in Vuyyuru was 79.49%, while it was 77.34% in Nandigama, 76.19% in Tiruvuru, 73.68% in Nuzvid and 72.53% in Machilipatnam.
In Vijayawada, of the 7,81,883 voters, over 4,91,648 exercised their franchise in the 788 polling booths through ballot voting. Many young voters cast their vote using ballot paper for the first time. The six ULBs with only 2.84 lakh votes apart from Vijayawada witnessed over 75% turnout.
Most of the 64 wards witnessed more than 50% voter turnout in the city.
State Election Commissioner N. Ramesh Kumar along with District Collector A.Md. Imtiaz, VMC Commissioner and Additional Election Authority V. Prasanna Venkatesh inspected the polling arrangements at various polling stations.
Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan and his wife Supravan Harichandan, Jana Sena Party chief and actor Pawan Kalyan cast their votes in their respective polling booths.
Mr. Imtiaz said that ballot boxes would be shifted to the strong room set up on Andhra Loyola College premises. He said high security was placed in the college and would be guarded until the day of counting, March 14, Wednesday and results are likely to emerge by the afternoon.
