The stage is set for polling in Dubbak Assembly by-election on Tuesday. As many as 23 candidates including S. Sujatha of TRS, Ch Srinivas Reddy from Congress and M Raghunandan Rao of the BJP are contesting the elections.
There are a total of 1,98,807 voters out of which 1,00,778 are women, 97,978 men and 51 service voters.
Polling is scheduled to take place in Dubbak from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m at 315 polling stations and the district administration has made arrangements in compliance with COVID-19 norms. Tight security measures have been taken as 89 are sensitive polling stations. Arrangements have been made for either webcasting or CC cameras or video recording at all polling stations .
As the Election Commission received several complaints about the district administration, the poll panel made three important changes. Collector P. Venkatarami Reddy was transferred from Siddipet to Sangareddy and Bharathi Hollikeri was appointed in his place. Saroj Kumar Thakur, an IPS officer from Tamil Nadu, was appointed police observer for the constituency and Naredh Bundel was appointed second expenditure observer.
The campaign witnessed war of words between TRS and BJP over allegations of money seized from the relatives of the BJP candidate.
Finance Minister T. Harish Rao, who campaigned tirelessly for the past two months did not mince words in criticising his opposition parties. While explaining the welfare schemes being implemented by the TRS government, he exposed the failures of both the BJP and the Congress. He asked voters to choose between those locally available and those who are seen only during elections. At several meetings he asked whether the BJP and Congress leaders know the borders of the constituency and whether they will be available locally after elections. He also alleged that BJP was trying to buy votes and the money seized from the house Raghunandan Rao’s relatives at Siddipet was an indication of it.
BJP president and Lok Sabha member Bandi Sanjay and another MP D. Aravind hit out at TRS by questioning its unfulfilled promises like employment for one person from each house, unemployment allowance to youth. They also said that a change in Dubbak constituency will bring about changes in the State and BJP will become the alternative to TRS.
TPCC President Uttam Kumar Reddy and other leaders of the party repeatedly alleged that the funds sanctioned for Dubbak were diverted to Siddipet and Gajwel by the ruling TRS.
