Hyderabad: The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is confident of winning all six MLC seats, which went for polling on Friday.
The ministers and TRS MLAs, who were appointed as party in-charges for MLC polls under local bodies quota, monitored polling in respective districts.
After the polling, they submitted reports to party leadership stating that TRS victory is certain with a big majority and rival candidates would forfeit deposits in all the six seats going by polling trends.
The ministers and party MLAs exercised votes in respective districts as ex-officio members.
The voters eligible to vote in these elections were elected representatives from local bodies, namely MPTCs, ZPTCs, councillors and corporators. In all, there were 5,326 voters, of whom 3,223 were MPTCs, 325 ZPTCs, 1,544 councillors and 169 corporators.
About 90 per cent of these elected representatives belong to the TRS. Despite this, the party leadership did not take any chances and shifted all its voters to camps in other states.
They were brought directly to polling booths in buses after 10 days of stay at camps on Friday.
The TRS faced Congress candidates in two seats (Khammam and Medak districts) and Independent candidates in four seats (Karimnagar two and Adilabad, Nalgonda one each). The independents were backed by the Congress and the BJP. Out of 12 MLC seats that went for polls, the TRS already bagged six seats unanimously. The TRS is confident of making a clean sweep by winning all the remaining six seats for which the polling was held on Friday.
The counting of votes will take place on December 14.
The TRS leadership took elections for two seats in Karimnagar district more seriously following its recent debacle in the Huzurabad bypoll in the same district. Former mayor of Karimnagar Ravinder Singh quit the TRS and contested the poll as an independent. The TRS leadership suspected BJP’s Etala Rajender’s role behind this and deputed ministers and party MLAs to counter Rajender’s strategy and ensure victory for the TRS.
TRS chief K. Chandrashekar Rao did not exercise his vote as an ex officio voter in Medak district.
