Decks cleared for declaring result in one division of GHMC

Hyderabad, Dec 7 : 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.