Hyderabad, March 28 (IANS): Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy cast his vote in the by-election to the Telangana Legislative Council at the Mahabubnagar local authorities’ constituency on Thursday.

As an ex-officio member in his capacity as the MLA from Kodangal, Revanth Reddy cast his vote in his home constituency.

Representatives of the local bodies exercised their franchise at 10 polling stations in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district on Thursday.

The polling, which began at 8 a.m., concluded at 4 p.m. A total of 1,439 voters, including municipal councillors, MPTCs, ZPTCs, and ex-officio members were eligible to cast their votes.

The by-election is witnessing a direct fight between Manney Jeevan Reddy of the ruling Congress and N. Naveen Kumar Reddy of the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). An Independent candidate -- Sudershan Goud -- is also in the fray.

Fearing poaching of their elected representatives, the Congress and the BRS had shifted them to Karnataka, Kerala, and Goa. They returned on Wednesday.

The BRS enjoys an absolute majority in the local bodies as the party almost made a clean sweep in the elections held in 2019.

The BRS has a strength of 1,039 (71 per cent), Congress 241 (16.67 per cent), BJP 119 (8.23 per cent), and others 46 (3.18 per cent).

However, cross-voting is feared in the by-election, considered prestigious for both the Congress and the BRS ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

The by-election was necessitated after Kasireddy Narayan Reddy of the BRS resigned and successfully contested as a Congress candidate from the Kalwakurthy Assembly constituency in the recent elections.

The Congress won 12 out of the 14 Assembly seats in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district.