Hyderabad: The counting of votes polled in the keenly-fought election to Telangana Legislative Council from two Graduates constituencies began Wednesday.
The final result is expected Thursday as big-sized ballot papers and jumbo ballot boxes were used for polling in view of the large number of candidates in fray.
The counting process is expected to be long as the voters exercised their franchise in a preferential method.
Polling was held on March 14 for the two Graduates’ constituencies.
While the Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad seat witnessed 67.26 per cent of polling, the voter turnout was 76.41 per cent in the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency.
The total number of voters in the two constituencies together is over 10 lakh.
Former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Raos daughter S Vani Devi is the ruling TRS candidate from the Mahabubnagar- Rangareddy-Hyderabad Graduates constituency.
As many as 93 candidates were in the fray from Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad constituency, while 71 nominees contested from the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency.
The votes of the Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad constituency are counted in the state capital, while counting was underway in Nalgonda for the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency.
Having suffered setbacks in Dubbak assembly constituency bypoll and Hyderabad civic polls late last year, the TRS made a determined bid to win the two seats, while the BJP sought to continue the momentum it gained after impressive performance in the Hyderabad civic election.
The Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad is witnessing a close contest as G Chinna Reddy of Congress, TDP’s Telangana unit president L Ramana and former MLC K Nageshwar , a journalism professor and prominent analyst, are also in the fray.
The main candidates from Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda seat are sitting MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy of TRS, G Premender Reddy (BJP), Ramulu Naik (Congress) and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) leader M Kodandaram.
PTI