Assembly polls: Telangana's final voter turnout at 71.34%

Hyderabad, Dec 2 (IANS) The final voter turnout in Telangana Assembly elections held on Thursday was 71.34 per cent, according to the Election Commission of India.

After the polling came to an end at 5 p.m. on Thursday, the approximate voter turnout was put at 63.94 per cent. The figure was revised later as the polling continued in some constituencies till 9.30 p.m.

On Friday morning, the poll percentage was shown as 70.66 per cent. It was further revised to 71.23 per cent in the evening and the final number of 71.34 per cent was declared on Friday night.

In the 2018 elections, the polling percentage was 73.74.

Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj attributed this to tabulation of numbers after scrutiny by elections observers and returning officers for each of the 119 constituencies.

Out of 3,26,02,793 voters, 2,32,59,256 cast their votes. More female voters than male exercised their franchise. A total of 1,16,73,722 women cast their votes against 1,15,84,728 men. The final figures also show that 806 third genders exercised their franchise.

Munugode constituency in Nalgonda district recorded the highest turnout of 91.89 per cent while Yakutpura in Hyderabad saw the lowest percentage at 39.64.

Palair recorded 90.89 per cent polling. The turnout was 90.77 per cent in Alair.

As many as 83 constituencies registered more than 75 per cent polling. Rural areas saw higher turnout than urban areas.

Nine out of 15 Assembly constituencies in Hyderabad recorded less than 50 per cent polling. Hyderabad recorded an average 47.88 per cent polling.

For the first time, female voters had outnumbered males in the state. Out of 3,26,02,799 voters, there are 1,62,98,418 men and 1,63,01,705 women. The gender ratio is 1000.2. There are 2,676 transgenders among the electors.

The service voters are 15,406 while the number of PwD (person with disability) voters is 5,06,921. According to the CEO, 4,40,371 voters are over 80 years of age.

The number of voters in the 18-19 age group or the first-time voters is 9,99,667, constituting 3.07 per cent of the total electors.

The voters decided the political fortunes of 2,290 candidates including 2,068 males, 221 females and one candidate from the third gender.

Over 25,000 voters voted from home as the Election Commission for the first time introduced home voting facility in the state for voters above 80 years and PwD voters. In the category of 80 plus senior citizens, the election authorities had accepted 17,108 applications and out of them 16,005 actually voted.

They also approved home voting requests of 9,961 PwD voters and of them 9,459 actually voted.

More than 1.80 lakh employees who were on poll duty voted through postal ballots. The votes were brought to Hyderabad and respective district headquarters for exchange to make sure that they reached the constituency concerned.