Tirupati counting trends go on expected lines

Tirupati: The counting trends in Tirupati Lok Sabha by-election have been going on expected lines from the beginning. From the first round, YSRCP candidate Maddila Gurumoorthy has been maintaining his lead and is now leading by almost one lakh votes than TDP's Panabaka Lakshmi.

Though, the win of YSRCP candidate was widely expected by everyone, the party leaders and cadres have focussed on securing more than five lakh votes majority. Going by the current trends, the party may end up somewhere at below three lakhs majority which is much lower than they anticipated.

In fact, TDP has become successful in bringing down the majority of YSRCP. Its nominee Panabaka Lakshmi has been getting a decent number of votes from the beginning of counting. So far, TDP could gain a vote share of 32.48 percent as against YSRCP's 55.86 percent.

In absolute figures, Gurumoorthy has got 235207 votes while TDP candidate Lakshmi secured 136743 votes when last reports came in. BJP's K Ratna Prabha got 24100 votes.

BJP has boasted well before the elections that it had fair chances of winning the seat and put in all efforts to field its candidate here convincing its alliance partner Janasena. However, the only solace for the party is that it is getting more votes compared to what they got in 2019 elections. It may be recalled that they contested the seat on their own in 2019 whereas now they teamed up with Janasena. Still it failed to make a big impact.

Six time MP and former Union Minister of state Chinta Mohan has made another futile effort by contesting this election. This would be his third defeat in a row since 2014. Significantly his vote share was also coming down in every election. From 40.36 percent vote share in 2009, he could get only 1.60 percent in 2019 which is less than the NOTA.