Hyderabad, Oct 17 (IANS): The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is leading in the by-election to the Banswada assembly seat in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh.

TRS candidate P. Srinivas Reddy was leading by over 30,000 votes at the end of the ninth round of counting Monday morning, election officials said.

With five more rounds of counting to go, TRS appears set to wrest the seat from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which did not contest in view of the strong Telangana sentiments in the region.

Over 77 percent of 1.60 lakh eligible voters had voted in the by-election Oct 13.

The election in Nizamabad district was caused by the resignation of Srinivas Reddy, who quit TDP to join TRS to fight for a separate Telangana state.

Though there are six candidates in the fray, it is a direct fight between Srinivas Reddy and the ruling Congress party's S. Srinivas Goud.

TRS completely dominated the campaigning as none of the top Congress leaders, including Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and state Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana, visited the constituency.

The by-poll was held at a time when a general strike has been on in the region for one month.

TRS had bagged only 10 assembly seats in the 2009 elections. Last year, all its legislators resigned on the Telangana issue and were re-elected with huge majority.

TRS also increased its strength as one TDP legislator, who had resigned on the same issue, won the by-election as a TRS candidate.

Telangana accounts for 117 seats in the 294-member Andhra assembly.