The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) continued to maintain a lead over the Bharataiya Janata Party at the end of sixth round of counting of votes in Munugode Assembly by-election.
In a neck and neck race, TRS candidate K. Prabhakar Reddy was leading by 2,169 votes against his nearest rival K. Rajagopal Reddy.
With nine more rounds to go, leaders of both the parties were keeping their fingers crossed over the outcome in the crucial by-election, seen by many as a semifinal ahead of next year's Assembly polls.
At the end of sixth round, TRS had polled 38,521 votes while BJP secured 36,352 votes. The Congress party was at a distant third position with 11,894 votes.
The TRS candidate took a comfortable lead in the first round. Prabhakar Reddy had secured 6,418 while BJP's Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy polled 5,126 votes. Congress party's Palvai Sravanthi was third with 2,100 votes.
However, in the second round, the BJP took the lead of 841 votes. It 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 polled more votes than TRS in the third round but from the fourth round, the TRS regained the lead and maintained it in the fifth and sixth rounds.
There will be a total 15 rounds of counting. The counting of votes began at 8 a.m. 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 voters, 2,25,192 voters 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 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 Prabhakar Reddy, who had lost to Rajagopal Reddy in 2018.
The Congress party fielded Palvai Sravanthi Reddy, daughter of former MP Palvai Goverdhan Reddy.
In 2018, Rajagopal Reddy had won Munugode seat on Congress ticket, defeating his nearest rival Prabhakar Reddy of TRS by 23,552 votes.
Rajagopal Reddy had polled 99,239 votes while Prabhakar Reddy secured 61,687 votes. G. Manohar Reddy of BJP had bagged 12,725 votes.
