Munugode by-election: TRS leading in tight contest

Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has taken a lead of 1,034 votes at the end of the fourth round of counting of votes in Munugode Assembly by-election.

The initial trends show that the constituency is witnessing a close contest between the ruling TRS and the opposition BJP as the counting of votes was taken up on Sunday.

TRS candidate K. Prabhakar Reddy took the lead from the very first round. Prabhakar Reddy has secured 6,418 votes while BJP’s Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy polled 5,126 votes. Congress party’s Palvai Sravanthi was third with 2,100 votes.

In the second round, BJP took the lead of 841 votes. It was polled 8,622 votes while TRS garnered 7,781 votes. Congress was again a distant third with 1,537 votes. However, TRS took a cumulative lead of 451 votes.

The BJP was polled more votes than TRS in the third round but in the fourth TRS regained the lead and at the end of this round, the ruling party was ahead by 1,034 votes.

There will be a total 15 rounds of counting. The counting of votes began at 8 a.m. on Sunday amid tight security. The poll officials first took up counting of postal ballots.

A voter turnout of 93.13 per cent was recorded in the bitterly contested bypoll on Thursday. This surpassed 91.31 per cent polling recorded in the constituency in 2018 polls.

Out of a total 2,41,805 electorate, 2,25,192 cast their votes. This does not include the postal ballots.

Though there were a total of 47 candidates in the fray, the main contest was among three major players – TRS, BJP and Congress.

The bypoll was necessitated after sitting MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy resigned from the Congress to join the BJP in August. This time he contested on the BJP ticket.

The TRS fielded former MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, who had lost to Rajagopal Reddy in 2018.

The Congress fielded Palvai Sravanthi Reddy, daughter of former MP Palvai Goverdhan Reddy.