T'gana urban local body polls: Counting of votes begins

Counting of votes for the municipal elections in Telangana began on Saturday morning with the ruling TRS, which swept the rural local body polls last year, hopeful of continuing its dominance. The counting commenced at 8 AM and the results are expected to be fully available by evening.

The Telangana State Election Commission has made elaborate arrangements for the exercise. Polling for 120 municipalities and nine corporations in the state was held amid tight security on January 22 and 24.

According to official sources, 40 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in the municipalities while that of municipal corporations was 58.83. Aiming at continuing its impressive performance, the TRS led a spirited campaign in the run-up to elections, under the direction of its working president and minister K T Rama Rao.

The opposition Congress and BJP too sought to put their best foot forward. The TRS bagged all the 32 Zilla Parishads in the rural local body elections held last year and was hopeful of continuing its impressive performance in the municipal polls, party sources said.

TRS has been successful at the hustings after having returned to power with a massive majority in the assembly polls held in December 2018. It put up a decent performance in the Lok Sabha polls winning 11 out of the total 19 seats, though it suffered an unexpected setback in the Nizamabad assembly seat, which it failed to retain.

The BJP made surprise gains in the Lok Sabha polls, securing four seats. TRS had won the Huzurnagar Assembly constituency by-poll held in October last year where a by-election was necessitated after state Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy quit following his election to the Lok Sabha.

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