Telangana High Court gives green signal to the State EC to declare the election result of Neredmet division

The Telangana High Court on Monday gave green signal to the State Election Commission (SEC) to declare the election result of Neredmet division of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

The court ruled that the SEC can treat all the votes with different marks 

too as valid, saying that since the intention of voters is clear, the votes should be treated as valid.

The court dismissed the petition of BJP legal cell incharge Antony Reddy, who sought direction to SEC not to count ballots with marks other than ‘swastika’.

The SEC may now declare the result in Neredmet division where Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidate was leading by 504 votes.

The result of Neredmet was withheld on Friday



when the results of 149 divisions were announced.

Since there was dispute on 544 votes with different marks, the SEC withheld the results. The High Court had directed the SEC on Friday that if the number of votes with different marks exceed the majority, the result should be withheld.

It was on December 3 that the SEC had issued a circular declaring ballot papers with a distinguishing mark instead of arrow cross-mark (swastika) as valid in the GHMC elections.

As polling officers in some polling stations had provided a distinguishing mark instead of arrow cross mark for marking on the ballot paper to the voters to cast their vote, the SEC said that all such votes should be treated valid.