Hyderabad: Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has consolidated its position in the Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly constituency, the counting trend showed on Sunday.
After 11 rounds of counting, Nomula Bhagat of the TRS was leading by 9,034 votes over his nearest rival K. Jana Reddy of the Congress party.
The TRS candidate polled 38,924 votes while Jana Reddy secured 29,890 votes.
Counting of votes polled in the April 17 bypoll began Sunday morning. The counting was taking place in two large halls, each with seven tables. About 400 officials were involved in counting and related activity.
Officials expect the counting to be completed in 25 rounds.
The constituency had witnessed 86.18 per cent polling on April 17 despite the Covid-19 surge. Out of the 2.20 lakh voters, 1.89 lakh had cast their votes.
As many as 41 candidates, including three women, contested the bypoll, which was necessitated due to the death of sitting legislator Nomula Narasimhaiah of the TRS.
The ruling party fielded Narasimhaiah’s son Nomula Bhagat, a debutant who took on veteran Congress leader and seven-time MLA Jana Reddy.
In 2018, Nomula Narasimhaiah had won the seat by defeating Jana Reddy of the Congress by about 8,000 votes. Nomula polled 83,655 votes while Jana Reddy had garnered 75,884 votes.
BJP’s K. Niveditha Reddy had polled only 2,675 votes.
The TRS had polled 46.34 per cent votes while the Congress secured 42.04 per cent vote and the BJP could get only 1.48 per cent votes.