Counting of votes begins in Mungode bypoll

Hyderabad: Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy was leading by 1,192 votes after completion of the first round of counting in the Munugodu bypoll in Telangana.

Earlier, the counting of votes began at Arjalabavi godown of Food Corporation of India (FCI) in Nalgonda district, which is the designated counting centre, at 8 a.m. on Sunday.

After first round of counting, TRS candidate polled 6,096 votes, BJP 4,904 votes and Congress 1,877 votes.

Before the counting of votes in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMS) have been taken up, TRS was leading by 4 votes after counting of postal ballots.

TRS secured 228 votes, BJP 224 and BSP 10 votes.

A three-tier security was provided at the Centre for the counting of votes, official sources said.

Counting of five randomly selected Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips will be taken up after completion of counting of votes in EVMs, Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj said.

There are 47 candidates in the fray. BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, whose resignation from the Congress party in August this year caused the bypoll.

Congress candidate Palvai Sravanthi, daughter of five-term Congress legislator Palvai Govardhan Reddy from Munugode was also trying her luck in the bypoll.

The votes polled on November 3 will be counted on 21 tables arranged for the task and it will be completed in 15 rounds.

The byelection saw a record voter turnout of 93.13%, surpassing 91.30% in the 2018 Assembly election, with as many as 2,25,192 electors of the total voters of 2,41,805 exercising their franchise, considered as the prestigious bypoll for the ruling TRS and both the National parties – the BJP and the Congress.

In the 2018 election, Rajagopal Reddy had won the Munugode Assembly seat on Congress ticket, defeating his nearest rival K. Prabhakar Reddy of TRS by 23,552 votes.