TRS leading in Telangana's Palair assembly by-election

Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana is set to wrest the Palair assembly seat from main opposition Congress party as its candidate and state Minister T. Nageswara Rao established a clear lead.

Nageswara Rao, who is minister for roads and buildings, was leading by over 25,000 votes as counting was in progress in the constituency in Khammam district.

In the by-election held on Monday, 89.73% of over 1.90 lakh voters had cast their votes.

The by-election was necessitated due to the death of sitting legislator Ramreddy Venkat Reddy of Congress party, which fielded his widow Sucharitha Reddy.

Though a total of 13 candidates were in the fray, it was basically a three-cornered contest among TRS, Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

In the 2014 elections, Venkat Reddy had won the seat by a majority of more than 21,000 votes over his nearest rival M. Swarna Kumari of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). TRS had finished a poor fourth with just 4,041 votes.

This time the TDP stayed away from the contest and supported the Congress candidate.