Hyderabad: The spectre of cross-voting during the April 30 elections is haunting many candidates in Telangana, who fear that it may cost them their seats.
Experts said the main reason for cross-voting voters backing one party for the Assembly and another party for the Lok Sabha was the confusion among people who voted in both polls at the same time.
Congress MLC P. Sudhakar Reddy said the main reason for cross-voting was local leadership, distribution of money by the candidates and caste equations.
One of the most glaring examples of cross-voting was in 2009, when the Congress won just 156 Assembly seats out of 294 but cornered 33 of the 42 LS seats from the state.
In the April 30 elections, the voters were confused between both the Congress and the TRS claiming credit for statehood.
The impact of BJP PM candidate Narendra Modi’s campaign could have swayed people to cross-vote for the polls, candidates fear.
In some constituencies, people voted TRS or the Congress for the Assembly and for the BJP for the Lok Sabha. Some candidates encouraged cross-voting by asking people to vote for them in Assembly polls and left LS vote to their choice.
Besides, with candidates of all major political parties distributing money, voters apparently felt encouraged to cross-vote.
In the Goshamahal Assembly seat, several MIM voters said they had voted Congress for the Assembly, while Congress voters went for the MIM in the general elections.
In the Secunderabad LS seat, Congress voters backed the party candidates for the Assembly and voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha. In Khammam, TD candidate Nama Nageswara Rao was the beneficiary of caste polarisation.
According to information from Warangal, TRS and Congress supporters cross-voted in the Ghanpur Assembly segment: Both voted for the Congress for the Assembly and the TRS for the LS.
