Hours after several BJP leaders declared the party was eyeing a landmark performance in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti has bounced back.
Counting of votes in the 150-member GHMC elections started at 8am on Friday. In the early hours, as postal ballots were being counted, the BJP led in as many as 80 seats, triggering a buzz of a saffron surge.
As counting of votes progressed by afternoon on Friday, the TRS was ahead in 59 seats, the BJP in 41 and Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM in 44 seats. The AIMIM could end up being the second-largest party.
As of 3.30pm, the TRS was leading in 40 seats and had won 19 while the BJP had won six and was leading in 35.
The TRS is on course to be the single-largest party in the GHMC and looks set to retain the mayor's post. However, the TRS has lost ground in the GHMC; in 2016, it won 99 seats.
The BJP, which gave a significant scare to the TRS, has boosted both its vote share and its seat count, having won just four seats in 2016.
The counting of votes in the GHMC polls has shown the continued decline of the Congress and irrelevance of the TDP. The Congress has won only one seat and is leading in just a handful, while the TDP sank without a trace, not winning a single seat in municipal elections in Hyderabad for the first time.
The polling percentage in the election was an unimpressive 46.55 per cent. Out of the 74.67 lakh voters, 34.50 lakh electors exercised their franchise.
While the ruling TRS fielded candidates in all the 150 wards, the BJP did so in 149 wards. The Congress, AIMIM and TDP fielded candidates in 146, 51 and 106 wards, respectively.
(With inputs from Rahul Devulapalli)