Voter turnout at 48.42% in Jubilee Hills bypoll
HYDERABAD: The Jubilee Hills Assembly by election recorded 48.42% voter turnout till 6pm on Tuesday, election officials said. Voters who were still in queues after the deadline were allowed to cast their votes, and the final polling percentage will be announced soon.
Polling began at 7am and continued smoothly across 407 polling stations, with a steady flow of voters throughout the day. The constituency has 4,01,365 registered voters. Officials said the overall turnout may increase slightly once post 6pm votes are included.
Exit polls indicate narrow Congress lead over BRS
Exit polls released after voting closed suggested that the Congress has a marginal edge over the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
According to Chanakya Strategies, Congress is projected to secure 46% of votes, followed by BRS with 43% and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 6%.
The HMR survey estimated 48.3% for Congress, 43.18% for BRS, and 5.84% for BJP, while the Smart Poll survey predicted 48.2% for Congress, 42.1% for BRS, 7.6% for BJP, and 2.1% for others.
Three-way contest after Maganti Gopinath’s death
The by-election was necessitated by the death of BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath. His wife Sunitha Maganti contested on behalf of BRS, while Naveen Yadav represented Congress and Lankala Deepak Reddy stood for BJP.
Although 58 candidates contested, the primary contest is among these three. Both ruling and opposition parties have treated the poll as politically significant.
Counting on November 14
Counting of votes will take place on November 14 (Friday), with results expected the same day. Political observers believe the outcome could influence political sentiment across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
