10 am: Harish Rao leads TRS rally with record win, DS trails by 12K

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti's K Harish Rao won the Siddipet bypoll with an astounding margin on 98,000 votes, even as the TRS and BJP moved decisively to retain all their seats.

Thanks to Mr Rao's record margin, his Congress and Telugu Desam opponents lost their deposits.

In Nizamabad Urban, perhaps the most watched bypoll battle, the BJP's Y. Lakshminarayana was forging ahead at the end of the seventh round of counting. He was leading by 12,000 votes over Mr D. Srinivas, the state Congress president, dealing a severe blow to his political future.

Koppula Eshwar won the Dharmapuri (SC) seats by 35,000 votes.

TRS candidates were leading in all the other constituencies which went to polls on July 27.

The Congress had taken a slender lead of 2,000 votes in Sirpur in the first round, but the TRS made up the deficit and was leading in the subsequent rounds.

Earlier, counting for the bypolls began amid tight security in all 12 constituencies that went to the bypolls.

Results are expected by 11 am in the rest of the seats which saw the use of EVMs: Sirpur, Chennur (SC), Mancherial, Vemulawada and RNizamabad (Urban), the results having been declared at Siddipet and Dharmapuri (SC).

In Yellareddy, Koratla, Sircilla, Huzurabad and Warangal West, where ballot papers were used, results are expected towards late evening. The TRS was ahead in all these seats.