Jubilee Hills bypoll: 58 candidates in fray after 23 withdrawals

After the withdrawal of 23 nominations, 58 candidates, including BRS’ Maganti Sunitha, Congress’ V Naveen Yadav, and BJP’s Lankala Deepak Reddy, will contest the Jubilee Hills by-election on November 11. M3 EVMs and colour ballot papers will be used for the first time

Hyderabad: Following withdrawal of nominations on Friday, the Jubilee Hills bye-election scheduled for November 11 will feature a total of 58 candidates.

On Friday, 23 candidates withdrew their nominations. P Sairam, Returning Officer of the Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency bye-election, officially released a list of the 23 candidates who withdrew their nominations to the media on Friday.

---

After completing the scrutiny on October 22, the Election Commission of India had accepted the nominations of 81 candidates for the Jubilee Hills bye-election. Now, 23 out of 81 candidates have withdrawn their nominations.

With this, major parties, including BRS candidate Maganti Sunitha, Congress candidate V Naveen Yadav, BJP candidate Lankala Deepak Reddy, and independent candidates are in the fray.

According to GHMC poll duty officials, the M3 version electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be used for the Jubilee Hills bye-election to be held on November 11. In the new M3 EVMs, up to 24 Ballot Units can be connected to a single Control Unit, allowing for a maximum of 384 candidates. The new version of M3 EVMs has several in-built security features that prevent tampering.

District Election Office, Hyderabad, is making arrangements to print colour ballot papers for the ensuing bye-election, marking the first time this will be done for a bye-election in Telangana, following a new initiative introduced by the Election Commission of India across the country.