TRS leads in Telangana's Huzurnagar bypoll

The ninth round of vote counting in the by-election to the Huzurnagar Assembly constituency saw Sanampudi Saidi Reddy of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi lead with 19,200 votes over his nearest rival N Padmavathi Reddy of the Congress. The final results will be known after 22 rounds of counting of votes and the final results are expected to be officially released after noon.

Twenty-eight candidates are contesting the bypoll, including the BJP and the TDP, but the primary contest is between the TRS and the Congress. While the Congress' candidate stood in the second position, the BJP and the TDP candidates were struggling to get the minimum number of votes.

The by-election was necessitated after Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Chief Nalamada Uttam Kumar Reddy resigned from the Huzurnagar Assembly seat for the Nalgonda MP seat. His wife Padmavathi is contesting from the Huzurnagar seat which is considered as a Congress stronghold.

The TRS, which is sure of winning the seat for the first time after the formation of Telangana, has proved that the ongoing TSRTC workers' strike has had no impact on the image of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao.

It was believed that the strike would adversely affect the winning chances of the TRS candidate. The local TRS cadre was also disheartened as KCR had to cancel the public meeting due to heavy downpour in Huzurnagar.

“Voters of Huzurnagar have shown that the people of Telangana are always with KCR despite the negative campaign unleashed by the entire opposition,” Saidi Reddy told reporters.