Holidays before MLC voting day on March 11 a concern to parties and candidates in TS

Hyderabad: Consecutive holidays before the March 14 polling day for the upcoming Graduate MLC elections have become a cause of concern for both political parties and candidates.

As per the state government's list of holidays for the month, March 11 is Maha Shivaratri and March 12 is Shab-E-Meraj, while March 13 is the second-Saturday and March 14 a Sunday. The larger concern is, could this result in a low voter turnout? If so, who would benefit from it?

People in towns and cities prefer to travel to their native places or villages during holidays; more so when holidays add up to the weekend holiday.

Only graduates are eligible to cast their votes in MLC Graduate polls. The voters would be either students pursuing higher education or employees in the government or private sector.

Most of such voters are those who have migrated to cities from villages for education and jobs. Central party leaderships have asked their leaders and cadre at every booth level to go and request voters to remain present for voting without fail.

TRS chief and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has, in a teleconference held on Monday, advised party leaders and activists at every booth to cover all households having graduate voters, with the help of voters' list, and urge them to cast votes without fail.

All the parties and taking up door-to-door campaigning and requesting voters not to leave the city and stay on to cast their votes without fail.