1,000 farmers to be agents for friends in fray

Hyderabad: The turmeric farmers who grabbed national headlines by filing 178 nominations as independents are all set to create another unique record in the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency. More than 1,000 farmers will be acting as polling agents for their peers.
The agents are mostly being deployed in Armoor, Jakranpalli, Kammarpalli, Yergatla, Mendora, Balkonda, Mukkal, Velpur and Metpalli mandals and Jagtial assembly constituency falling under the Lok Sabha seat.Manthani (Armoor mandal) and Hasakottur village (Balkonda) will have more than 300 agents as each contesting candidate is allowed to have one polling agent.
“In three booths in villages, we will be deploying 100 polling agents per booth,” said Ganga Reddy, a member of farmers’ joint action committee (JAC).
In the rest of the areas, each booth will have one or two agents. More number of agents would mean that election officials will have to make special arrangements. In many booths, polling agents will not be able to sit inside the booths which are small rooms.
“Though I had voted in previous elections, this will be the first time when I will be sitting as an election agent for my brother who is a candidate,” KR Reddy, a farmer, told TOI. Joint action committee members said many farmers willingly had come forward to work as polling agents.
“We had planned to file 1,000 nominations. Though we could not succeed, we could at least gather 1,000 polling agents,” Saya Reddy, a farmer, pointed out.
The farmers will attend the mock polling drill, which will begin at 5 am on Thursday.