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Hyderabad, November 13 (IANS) The stage is set for counting of votes in the by-election for Jubilee Hills assembly constituency in Hyderabad.
Tight security arrangements were made at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Stadium in Yousufguda, where the counting will begin at 8 am on Friday.
Election officials have arranged 42 tables for counting of votes and the entire process will be completed in 10 rounds.
According to Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudarshan Reddy, 48.49 percent voters cast their votes in the by-election.
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.
A total of 103 absentee voters (above 85 years and persons with disabilities) exercised their option for postal ballot, and 101 of them exercised postal ballot voting.
58 candidates are in the fray in the by-election caused by the death of sitting Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) MLA Maganti Gopinath.
BRS has fielded Gopinath’s wife Sunita, who is in direct competition with Naveen Yadav of the ruling Congress party. BJP has once again fielded Lankala Deepak Reddy.
Exit polls from several leading agencies suggest that Congress is 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.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president Mahesh Kumar Goud and several ministers, who actively campaigned in the by-election, are confident that the ruling party will win by a margin of 30,000 to 50,000 votes.
BRS leaders expressed confidence that the party would retain the seat despite what the ruling party said were massive irregularities.
State BJP President N. Ramachander Rao is also confident of the party’s victory in the by-elections.
In 2023, BRS’s Gopinath scored a hat-trick by defeating his nearest rival Mohammed Azharuddin of the Congress Party 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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