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Hyderabad, Nov 14 (IANS) Telangana’s ruling Congress looks set to wrest the Jubilee Hills assembly seat from Bharat Rashtra Samithi as it strengthened its lead in the counting of votes in the by-election on Friday.
After six out of 10 rounds of counting, Congress candidate Naveen Yadav has taken a lead of over 19,000 votes against his nearest rival, Maganti Sunita of Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS).
Congress candidates were ahead from the first round and maintained their lead in all subsequent rounds.
BJP’s Lankala Deepak Reddy, who stood third, left the counting center in disappointment.
Meanwhile, celebrations started in the Congress camp. Ruling party workers were seen bursting crackers and distributing sweets at the party headquarters, Gandhi Bhawan.
The counting of votes was going on amid tight security arrangements at Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Stadium in Yousufguda.
Election officials have arranged 42 tables for counting of votes and the entire process will be completed in 10 rounds.
District election officer RV Karnan said each round of counting is expected to take 40 minutes. The results are likely to be declared by 2 pm
There was 48.49 percent voting in the by-election held on Tuesday. A total of 1,94,631 votes were cast. Officials said 99,771 men, 94,855 women and five others cast their votes. The number of postal ballots is 101.
There are a total of 4,01,365 voters in the constituency, which includes 2,08,561 males, 1,92,779 females and 25 others.
58 candidates are in the fray in the by-election caused by the death of sitting BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath.
BRS has fielded Gopinath’s wife Sunita against Congress’ Naveen Yadav. BJP has once again fielded Lankala Deepak Reddy.
Exit polls by several leading agencies had suggested that the Congress was set to wrest the seat from BRS. The Congress party is expected to get 46-48 percent votes, while BRS is likely to get 41-42 percent votes. BJP can remain in third place with only 6-8 percent votes.
In 2023, BRS’s Gopinath scored a hat-trick by defeating his nearest rival Mohammed Azharuddin of Congress by a margin of 16,337 votes.
The BRS candidate got 80,549 votes while Azharuddin got 64,212 votes. BJP’s Deepak Reddy stood third with 25,866 votes. AIMIM’s Farazuddin finished fourth with just 7,848 votes.
This time AIMIM led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi supported the Congress candidate.
–IANS
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