Parties use money, liquor, gold, chicken to lure voters

Hyderabad: Contesting candidates and their supporters have to a large extent resorted to foul practices to get voters to cast their votes in their favour during the municipal elections held on Wednesday.

While some distributed cash and liquor, one distributed chicken, and others offered gold to lure voters.

Except for a few sporadic incidents, no violence was recorded in the urban local body elections held for 120 municipalities and nine corporations across the state, said the state police.

About 21 cases of poll violations were recorded by the end of the day, said the police.

At Elichipur village in Kamareddy district, the police held a Congress party local leader who was attempting to bribe voters by distributing gold nose pins. The police recovered about 33 gold nose pins from the Congress leader and are registering a case against him for violating the election rules.

At Jalpally, election staff and police recovered fake voter identity cards from those who attempted bogus voting. Attempts at bogus voting were also recorded at Kothakota in Wanaparthy district.

At Alampur in Jogulamba Gadwal district, the police had to use force when a huge gathering of MIM and Congress leaders entered into a heated argument when casting their votes.

At Sattupalli in Nalgonda district and a few other places, the leaders of various political parties were found distributing money, while at one place a person was caught distributing chicken to voters. At Jagityal, a case was booked against a contesting candidate for canvassing on the day of the election.

At Peddamberpet in Hayathnagar limits, police detained people engaged in an argument over allowing a person to cast his vote, alleging that he was not a resident of the area. The police found that the voter had moved to another place about six months ago, but his voter identification card showed the Peddamberpet address.

Incidents of heated arguments and gathering of local leaders were reported at Sultanabad mandal in Karimnagar district and in Manikonda municipality in Cyberabad.

“A total of 21 cases of violation of the model code of conduct have been registered. No violent incidents were reported and the elections were peaceful across the state,” said additional director general (Law and Order) Jitender.