Hyderabad: The Congress has written to the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), requesting him to instruct officials to adopt a lenient approach in counting towards the preference of the voters in the polled votes that were entered numerically in the Graduates’ and Teachers’ MLC elections held in the constituencies of Karimnagar, Adilabad, Nizamabad, and Medak on February 27.

“In these elections, voters must mark their preferences numerically (e.g., 1, 2, 3) against the
candidates’ names. However, a significant number of voters, accustomed to general voting styles, have marked only “1” or “l” to indicate their choice/preference. While their intent is clear, the mismatch between their understanding and the electoral system’s requirements may lead to issues,” stated Rudra Santhosh Kumar, Graduate MLC – election in-charge, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC).

He urged that such votes should not be invalidated due to such minor technicalities.

The Congress leader stated that the Election Commission has neither conducted sufficient voter awareness programs to educate the electorate on the required voting method, nor did it perform any mock poll method, the reason why such an issue arose in the Telangana MLC elections.

“This lack of communication has resulted in widespread confusion, directly impacting the way
votes have been cast,” he observed. He urged the counting officials to show a lenient approach where only “1” is marked, or where minor deviations from the prescribed format are observed during the counting process.