Telangana MLC poll: TRS candidates maintain lead

The ruling TRS candidates continued to hold the lead over their rivals on Saturday as counting of votes in the election to Telangana Legislative Council from two Graduates constituencies was underway.

Vani Devi, TRS nominee from Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy- Hyderabad Graduates' constituency, was ahead of her nearest BJP rival and sitting MLC N Ramachander Rao as the process of elimination of candidates with less number of votes and counting of second preference votes was currently on, official sources said.

The contest is expected to be mainly between Vani Devi and BJPs Ramachander Rao with others getting eliminated in the process, sources said.

They said 87 candidates have been eliminated till Saturday morning in the Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad seat.

Meanwhile, TRS nominee and sitting MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy was leading in the Khammam-Warangal-Nalgonda Graduates constituency.

Both the nominees of TRS have been maintaining a lead over their rivals since the counting of votes began on Wednesday.

Though the process began three days ago, it is taking time as jumbo-sized ballot papers were used for polling in view of the large number of candidates in fray and also because the voters exercised their franchise in a preferential method.

Polling was held on March 14 for the two Graduates' constituencies.

The total number of voters in the two constituencies is over 10 lakh.

As many as 93 candidates were in the fray from Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad constituency, while 71 nominees contested from the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency.