Munugode Assembly bypoll : TRS leads by 714 votes after 4th round of counting

Hyderabad: Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party was locked in a neck-and-neck fight in the high-takes bypoll to Munugode Assembly Constituency with TRS Candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy was leading by a slender margin of 714 votes after completion of fourth round of counting.

After the counting began at 0800 hours at Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown in Arjalabavi village in Nalgonda district amid tight security arrangements, TRS won the first round followed by BJP in Second and Third Round. However, TRS bounced back by winning the fourth round, sources in Election Department said.

In the 1st round TRS secured 6096 votes and BJP 4904 votes, in the second round TRS polled 7771 votes and BJP 8622 votes, in the Third Round TRS got 7010 votes and BJP 7426 votes and in the fourth round TRS garnered 4854 votes, BJP 4555 votes and Congress 1,1817 votes.

TRS so far polled 26,443 votes and BJP 25,279 votes after the fourth round of counting. The fifth round of counting is in progress.

In the postal votes counted before the counting of EVMs taken up, TRS was ahead by 4 votes after it had secured 228 votes followed by BJP 224 votes and BSP 10 votes.

The final result is expected to be declared by 3 pm this afternoon.

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 were being 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.