With early trends in their favour, TRS confident of retaining power

With the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) surging ahead in early trends, party MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Tuesday asserted that her party will retain power in the state.

With counting of votes underway in the state, Kavitha underlined that the Chandrashekhar Rao-led party will win the state with a huge majority.

As per early trends from the Election Commission of India (ECI) TRS is leading on 12 seats, while Congress and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) are leading on one seat each.

"We believe people of Telangana are with us. We have sincerely worked and utilised the opportunity given to us. So, I believe voters will bring us back to power and that too independently. We are very confident about it," Kavitha opined.

Telangana, the country's youngest state, went to polls on December 7 to elect representatives of the 119 seats of the State Assembly.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for counting of votes in the state.

The major players in the southern state are the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a grand alliance called 'Praja Kutami', that comprises the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).

A total of 1,821 candidates were in the fray for the Assembly elections in Telangana. The state recorded a voter turnout of over 73 per cent.