Vijayawada: In a surprising trend, a record number of government employees in Andhra Pradesh exercised their franchise through postal ballots for the upcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has completed the process of accepting postal ballots from eligible employees from state and Central governments and service voters on Thursday. According to EC official, a total of 4,32,222 employees exercised their franchise.
The number is quite higher than ever before; the highest ever polling in the form of postal ballots in the state’s history. According to official statistics, only around 1.2 lakh postal ballots were polled in 2019. In addition to the already polled postal ballots, another two lakh employees who will be working in their home segments on polling days, are likely to cast their votes through EVMs.
In a high-stake battle for power in the state, employees are likely to emerge king makers in several assembly constituencies.
According to sources more than five lakh employees applied for postal ballots of which nearly 86 percent have cast their votes. About 2,000 votes were polled in each assembly constituency while several constituencies reported high polling between 3,500 and 4,000 votes.
These many votes are enough to change the fortunes of candidates where the margins are expected to be very low. Since a keen battle is on the cards, postal ballots will have a key role in the outcome.
