T'gana urban local body polls: Counting of votes on Saturday

Counting of votes in the Municipal elections held in Telangana two days ago would be taken up on Saturday and the ruling TRS, which swept the rural local body polls last year, is hopeful of continuing its impressive performance.

Polling for 120 municipalities and nine corporations in the state was held amid tight security on January 22 and 74.40 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in the municipalities.

The percentage of polling in municipal corporations was 58.83, official sources said on Friday.

The TRS bagged all the 32 Zilla Parishads in the rural local body elections held last year and the party is hopeful of continuing its impressive performance in the municipal polls, according to TRS sources.

TRS has been successful at the hustings 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 form of TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's daughter K Kavitha failing to retain her Nizamabad seat.

BJP made surprise gains in the Lok Sabha polls, securing four seats.

TRS had won the Huzurnagar Assembly constituency bypoll held in October last year where bye-election was necessitated after state Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy quit following his election to the Lok Sabha.

Meanwhile, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader M Bhatti Vikramarka alleged in a statement on Friday that the urban local body polls cannot be said to have been held between TRS and Congress and that it was a contest between distribution of "liquor, money, inducements (by TRS) and the democratic Congress."