HYDERABAD: Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, Eatela Rajender leads in the fifth round by a margin of 2,169 votes for Huzurabad Assembly polls. BJP got 22,327 votes, TRS candidate polled G Srinivas Yadav (TRS) polled 20,158 votes. There are still 17 round to go.
Till now, votes have been counted from villages which have a TRS stronghold. BJP seems to take lead from the first round of counting. Villages like Peda Papaiah Palli, which have a BJP stronghold, are yet to counted.
In Shalapally village, BJP leads by 135 votes. This is the same village where Dalita Bandhu scheme was lanched by TRS.
The counting of votes for bypoll to the Huzurabad Assembly constituency in Telangana began at 8.00 am on Tuesday amid tight security.
All necessary arrangements have been made by the Election Commission of India. The counting of votes in EVMs will begin in two halls after completion of counting of postal ballots. There will be 22 rounds of counting and will continue till afternoon. A total of 2,05,236 votes have been polled.
A total of 30 candidates are in fray in the bypolls, caused by the resignation of Eatala Rajender after he was dropped from the State Cabinet by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao following allegations of land grabbing. Rajender resigned from both Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the state Assembly to join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Rajender, who had been representing Huzurabad seat since 2009, is contesting as a BJP candidate.
A three-layer security arrangement is in place at the counting centre. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC have been imposed within 200 metre radius of the counting centres.
Though it was initially expected to be a three-cornered contest, the Congress clearly lagged behind BJP and TRS due to delay in announcing the candidate and launching the campaign. The Congress party has nominated 29-year-old political novice B. Venkat Narsing Rao, chief of the state's NSUI unit, as its candidate.
The constituency saw a long and bitter campaign with both TRS and BJP accusing each other of using money, liquor and other gifts to lure voters. TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his son and TRS working president KT Rama Rao stayed away from the campaigning.
In 2018, Rajender had retained Huzurabad, defeating his nearest rival Kaushik Reddy of Congress by over 43,000 votes. The TRS candidate had polled 1,04,840 while Congress candidate secured 61,121 votes. BJP candidate P Raghu polled only 1,683 votes, which was less than NOTA votes (2,867). Kaushik Reddy recently quit Congress and joined TRS.