EVM glitches in many places as voting for LS, Assembly polls begins in Andhra

Voters queued up in considerable numbers at polling stations to exercise their franchise as voting to elect 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha members in Andhra Pradesh began at 7 am Thursday.

In many places electronic voting machines (EVMs) had glitches resulting in some delay in polling, an official said.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his family members exercised their franchise at a polling station in Undavalli village in the state capital region Amaravati.

His son Nara Lokesh is the TDP candidate from Mangalagiri Assembly segment that covers Undavalli.

YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy cast his vote in his native Pulivendula in Kadapa district, from where he is seeking re-election.

State Chief Electoral Officer Gopal Krishna Dwivedi cast his vote in Tadepalli and said there were complaints about technical glitches in EVMs in about 50 places.

Technical teams were on the job to rectify the defects and enable polling, he said.

There are a total of 3,93,45,717 registered voters in the state, including 1,94,62,339 male, 1,98,79,421 female and 3,957 transgenders. Of the total, 10.15 lakh are first-time voters in the age group 18-19.

As many as 2,118 and 319 candidates are in the fray for 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats respectively.

Polling would end at 5 pm in the Left-wing extremism-affected areas, mostly those bordering Odisha and Chhattisgarh.