Hyderabad, Nov 10 (IANS): A see-saw battle between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is on in the Dubbak Assembly constituency, where the counting of votes polled in the by-elections is underway.
At the end of the 16th round, BJP candidate M. Raghunandan Rao is leading by a margin of 1,734 votes against his nearest rival S. Sujatha of the TRS.
After 16 rounds, BJP has polled 45,994 votes while TRS has secured 44,260 votes. The Congress could garner 14,832 votes so far.
The BJP candidate maintained the lead in most of the rounds while TRS gave a stiff fight in the last few rounds to reduce BJP's margin. Congress' Cheruku Srinivas Reddy is a distant third.
With seven more rounds of counting to go, Dubbak is heading for a tight finish.
The BJP established lead in the very first round and the same trend continued in the subsequent rounds. The TRS took a slender lead in the sixth and seventh rounds, but the BJP again raced ahead in the eighth round.
After 10th round, BJP was leading by 3,734 votes. In the subsequent rounds, TRS gave a tough fight to narrow the difference.
The by-elections held on November 3 saw 82.61 per cent voter turnout.
A total of 23 candidates are in the fray for the by-polls, necessitated by the death of S. Ramalinga Reddy of TRS in August this year due to ill-health.
The TRS fielded Ramalinga Reddy's widow Sujatha and is banking on sympathy factor.