Draw of lots, one-vote margins, family face-offs mark Khammam GP polls

The first phase of gram panchayat elections in erstwhile Khammam witnessed dramatic outcomes, including tied results decided by draw of lots, victories by one or two votes, sibling contests, and wins by young graduates, lecturers, and party rebels across multiple mandals

Khammam: The first phase gram panchayat elections in erstwhile Khammam witnessed some interesting happenings such as sarpanch candidates winning by draw of lots, by a margin of one or two votes and man defeating his brother.

Luck favoured Congress-supported candidate Moodu Chinna who contested for Putani thanda sarpanch seat in Raghunadhapalem mandal as he won the seat in a draw of lots. Chinna and BRS candidate Banoth Meenakshi secured 224 votes each. Hence, the election officials decided the winning candidate by lottery. Meenakshi lost the seat as two votes cast in her favour were invalid.

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Election officials had to count votes for three times in Badhya thanda of the same mandal as a candidate, Kotesh of Congress, raised objection over the victory of BRS candidate Pentya Naik, who secured 260 votes to win the sarpanch seat. Kotesh got 259 votes.

Even after counting the votes three times the result remained the same. But due to Congress workers’ protests the announcement of the result was delayed. During late night hours, the election officials declared that Pentya Naik won the seat by a margin of one vote.

In Madhira mandal, a sarpanch candidate Ch Kalyana Chakravathy of Congress won Bayyaram sarpanch seat by a margin of two votes. In Yerrupalem mandal, T Roja Kumari of Congress won Tellapalem sarpanch seat by a margin of one vote while a candidate T Nagi Reddy of Congress in the mandal won Laxmipuram sarpanch seat by a margin of three votes.

Two engineering graduates, Bhukya Ramana and Tammineni Priyanka, got elected as sarpanches of VR Banjar and Chintagurthy GPs while a private college lecturer Maloth Jyothi won GK Banjar sarpanch seat in Raghunadhapalem mandal.

In Bonakal mandal, a Congress rebel candidate Chandra Saritha claimed Chinna Beeravalli sarpanch seat by defeating her daughter-in-law Chandra Srilaxmi. In Wyra mandal, a man Tadikamalla Nagarjuna defeated his brother Tadikamalla Nageshwara Rao to claim Musalimadugu GP sarpanch seat. They both belong to the Congress party.

CPI (M) candidate Vobenaboina Laxmi won Patarlapadu sarpanch seat in Chintakani mandal while the party supporters won in 11 of the 12 wards. It might be noted that the party’s senior leader Samineni Rama Rao of Patarlapadu was murdered at the village on October 31.

Interestingly, TDP won sarpanch seats in three places, Allinagaram in Madhira mandal, Pedagopathy in Wyra mandal of Khammam and Koyagudem in Burgampahad mandal of Kothagudem district.