Khammam: TRS candidate Palla Rajeswara Reddy crossed the magic figure of 66,777 votes and was declared elected from the Nalgonda-Khammam-Warangal graduate constituency. A candidate should get more than half the valid votes to be declared the winner.

Twenty candidates out of 22 were eliminated during the counting of second preference round votes. Counting was delayed due to several reasons including a large number of invalid votes and the presence of 22 candidates in the race.

As a number of candidates reached the 50-per cent mark in the counting of first preference votes, the Election Commission commenced counting of ballot papers for the second preference votes.

According to details, about 1.53 lakh votes were polled in the districts where the electorate was about 2.96 lakh. Of these, about 20,000 votes were declared invalid, leaving 1,33,553 valid votes. Mr Rajeswara Reddy obtained 59,764 votes, which was 7,013 less than the 66,777 votes needed for victory.

The BJP’s Errabelli Ramamohana Rao obtained 47,041 votes followed by C. Naveen Kumar with 13,033 votes. Suram Prabhakara Reddy, the common candidate of 10 Left parties, bagged 11,580 votes. Mysa Papa Rao, contesting from the journalist community, got 320 and the remaining candidates secured 1,815 votes.

The BJP needed 19,736 second preference votes for a win. In the event, Mr Rajeswar Reddy reached the required total of 66,777 votes after counting the second preference votes on the ballot papers polled for Mr Naveen Kumar of the Congress.