AP municipal polls close: 48.03% turnout by 3 pm; small towns pass 70% while Visakhapatnam stays near 40%

Polling in Andhra Pradesh’s municipal elections closed at 5 pm on Sunday, largely peacefully apart from scattered incidents. By 3 pm, the last statewide figure released before the close, 48.03 per cent of voters had cast their ballots: 46.54 lakh of the 96.89 lakh voters in the 92 urban local bodies that went to the polls. The State Election Commission has yet to release the final turnout.

The pattern of the first hour held all day. Small towns voted heavily: Gudur in Kurnool district had reached 73.96 per cent by 3 pm, Chimakurthi in Prakasam district 73.64 and Kanigiri 73.20. The big cities stayed below half. Greater Visakhapatnam was the lowest at about 39.7 per cent, with Guntur at 40.99, Kadapa 41.21, Vijayawada 41.80 and Tirupati 42.12. The statewide figure had stood at 8.39 per cent at 9 am and 22.08 at 11 am.

The worst trouble was in Pulivendula, in Kadapa district, where rival groups of the Telugu Desam Party and the YSRCP threw stones at each other near polling stations. In Vijayawada, polling in one division was halted for a time after a mix-up of ballot symbols. YSRCP president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy alleged widespread irregularities, saying his party’s polling agents had been kept out of booths. Votes will be counted on Tuesday, 3 November.

The vote covers 92 of the state’s 100 urban local bodies: all 13 municipal corporations and 79 municipalities and nagar panchayats. In the other eight, among them Piduguralla, Gurazala, Darsi, Proddatur and Rayachoti, every seat was settled without a contest before polling day, so no ballots are being cast there.

A different kind of municipal vote

This election carries a change that voters in the cities will notice on the ballot. Under a 2026 amendment to the municipal laws, mayors and municipal chairpersons are chosen directly by the voters rather than by the winning councillors. In the corporations, 153 candidates are standing for the 13 mayor posts. Of 87 chairperson posts, 17 were filled unopposed, which leaves 70 to be decided between 367 candidates.

The ward contest is larger still. Of 3,942 ward seats, 755 were decided without a vote, and 9,742 candidates are fighting for the remaining 3,186.

The electorate and the machinery

The State Election Commission’s rolls carry 99.36 lakh voters: 51.05 lakh women, 48.29 lakh men and 1,443 voters of the third gender. Women outnumber men by about 2.76 lakh, a margin that runs through most of the towns going to the polls. Votes are being cast at 11,378 polling stations, open from 7 am to 5 pm.

Voters who did not receive a slip can still vote by showing an approved photo identity document, Aadhaar among them. The counting will be done on Tuesday, 3 November, at 138 centres across the state. The same morning, the India Meteorological Department expects the cyclone in the Bay of Bengal to cross the south Andhra coast.

Results for every corporation and municipality will appear on the Telugu Scope results page as they are declared. Our polling guide has the full list of seats and arrangements.