Low turnout for GHMC polls

Hyderabad,Nov 23: A low voter turnout marred the first civic polls after Hyderabad became the Greater Hyderabad municipal Corporation. The first half of the day saw only 18 per cent votes polled and it never picked up as the day progressed and finally by the end of the day it was a low  33 percent.The lowest voting was recorded in Uppal and Ramanthapur with  a turnout of 10 percent  while  Attapur recorded the  highest voter turnout with  40 percent.The drastic reduction in the voter turnout is being attributed to various reasons.According to the  analysts,the  Telangana Rashtra Samiti shying away from the civic elections is one of the  reasons  and  the other main reason is the lack  of proper organisation on the part of the candidates in the fray in effectively motivating the residents to cast their vote,Near empty booths and voters, especially senior citizens,walking in a trickle,was a common sight in many of  the  divisions. 

 In many of the polling  stations one can  only find the  relaxed election officials and police personnel outnumbering everyone else.``A voter is walking in once every 10 minutes,” sighed a police official. “It’s sheer waste of time and money.I have voted because in a democracy you should not ignore it,” observed one of the voters in Secunderabad.It is regrettable that of the  5.7 million eligible voters only 2 million are able to exercise their vote  to decide the fortunes of 1,310 candidates,which includes 403 women.This is the first time the civic polls are  being after Greater Hyderabad was formed in 2007 with the merger of eight municipalities and 12 villages of neighbouring districts with Hyderabad.