Polling was held for all 119 seats of the Telangana Assembly and 199 of 200 seats of the Rajasthan Assembly on Friday. Polling in one seat, Ramgarh in Alwar district, was postponed after the Bahujan Samaj Party’s candidate Laxman Singh died of a cardiac arrest.
The booths in Telangana opened at 7 am on Friday and voting was allowed till 5 pm, except in 13 Maoist-affected constituencies, where it concluded at 4 pm. Polling opened at 8 am in Rajasthan.
This concludes the process of voting that began last month to elect the Assemblies of five states – the others being Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. Counting of votes will take place on Tuesday.
7.40 pm: The final voter turnout in Rajasthan was 74% in Rajasthan and 73.2%% in Telangana, says the Election Commission, according to PTI. The counting of votes will take place on Tuesday.
5.45 pm: Polling comes to an end in all 119 constituencies in Telangana, according to The Economic Times.
5.05 pm: Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says the BJP has asked the Election Commission to take action against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for allegedly “influencing voters through a paid news article under the garb of his interview” in a Hyderabad newspaper on December 6, ANI reports.
3.49 pm: Rajasthan records 59.75% voter turnout in polls until 3pm and Telangana 56.17%, Doordarshan News reports.
3.47 pm: Congress President Rahul Gandhi asks party workers to be vigilant about eafter polls. “In Madhya Pradesh Electronic Voting Machines behaved strangely after polling,” Gandhi tweets. “Some stole a bus and vanished for two days! Others slipped away and were found drinking in a hotel. In [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s India, the EVMs have mysterious powers.”
3.12 pm: Vehicles set ablaze and vandalised in a clash at a polling booth in Fatehpur in Rajasthan. Voting was affected for 30 minutes, reports ANI. Voting resumed after police intervened.
3.07 pm: Election Commission revises voter turnout till 1 pm in Telangana, The New Indian Express reports. The polling percentage is 43.24. The percentage in Hyderabad till 1 pm is 28.28.
2.55 pm: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi says he is hopeful, PTI reports. “I am fully confident that we will be successful in every seat. I hope people of Hyderabad, people of Telangana take this little difficulty, go out of homes and use their vote,” he says.
2.50 pm: Telangana’s caretaker CM K Chandrasekhar Rao casts his vote in Siddipet, while caretaker minister KT Rama Rao casts his vote in Hyderabad.
2.18 pm: Unidentified people allegedly attack Congress candidate Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy, ANI reports. Reddy is undergoing treatment at a local hospital and is out of danger.
1.30 pm: Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala says Telangana has lost four years due to “corruption, commission [and] coterie Raj”. “Let us throw out the arrogance of power and usher in a new era towards a ‘Bangaru Telangana’.”
1.23 pm: Voter turnout in Rajasthan till 1 pm is 41.53%, reports ANI. Telangana records 49.15%% turnout.
11.31 am: Rajasthan records 21.89% voter tunrout till 11 am, according to ANI. Telangana registers 23.17% turnout till 11 am, reports Hindustan Times.
11.29 am: Voters create ruckus at two polling booths in Rajasthan’s Ahor constituency after Electronic Voting Machines malfunction, reports ANI.
10.34 am: Polling officials replace an electronic voting machine in Bikaner’s Kisamidesar in Rajasthan after a technical issue, reports ANI.
10.20 am: Badminton player Jwala Gutta says her name is missing from the voters’ list in Telangana. “How’s the election fair...when names r [are] mysteriously disappearing from the list.”
9.36 am: Voting is yet to begin in polling booth numbers 253 and 254 in the town of Ahor in Rajasthan’s Jalore district after electronic voting machines malfunction, reports ANI.
9.25 am: Former minister and TRS candidate from Khairatabad Danam Nagender came to Indiranagar wearing the party’s pink scarf, reports the Hindustan Times. The ruling party’s workers beat up the BJP agent after he objected to it, leading to a scuffle between workers of the two parties. BJP candidate Ch Ramachandra Reddy has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission and the police.
9.19 am: Congress leader Sachin Pilot refuses to discuss who the party will choose as chief minister in Rajasthan, says “we will sit and discuss this after our party gets a majority in the election”, reports ANI.
8.58 am: An EVM at Sardarpura constituency in Rajasthan has allegedly stopped working after former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot voted, the Hindustan Times reports.
8.55 am: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has cast her vote. Meanwhile, Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyan Srihari has also voted in Warangal, ANI reports.
8.32 am: An electronic voting machine has malfunctioned in Fatehpur town in Sikar district of Rajasthan, Hindustan Times reports. The EVM has been replaced. Technical problems have been reported with another EVM in Jhotwara, a suburban area of Jaipur.
8.13 am: Voting begins at 51,687 polling booths in Rajasthan.
8.06 am: Voting is yet to begin at the polling station at GHMC Indoor Stadium in Hyderabad’s Amberpet locality due to a technical problem, reports ANI.
7.57 am: State Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao casts his vote in polling booth number 102 in Siddipet.
7.37 am: Telangana ministers G Jagadeesh Reddy and T Nageswara Rao, along with his family members, cast their vote at Suryapet and Khammam.
7.34 am: Mock polling for agents of contestants to demonstrate functioning of electronic voting machines has been conducted in Rajasthan ahead of the voting.
7.28 am: Additional Deputy General of Police (Law and Order) Jitender tells PTI that one lakh police personnel including 25,000 central paramilitary forces and 20,000 from other states have been placed on poll duty.
7.23 am: Nearly Rs 135 crore in unaccounted cash, illegal liquor and other goods have been confiscated in Telangana since the model code of conduct came into operation on September 27, the Hindustan Times reports.
7.16 am: In the Rajasthan elections, 2,294 candidates are in the fray. The non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms had reported that of the 2,188 candidates it analysed, 320 are facing criminal cases.
As many as 1,821 candidates, including Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his nephew T Harish Rao and 12 other cabinet colleagues are in the fray in Telangana.