Leaders of the ruling Congress and the Opposition Telugu Desam are confidant of grabbing some seats currently held by the TRS in the 12 Assembly segments going for by-polls on Tuesday.

In 2008, when 16 TRS MLAs and four MPs had resigned and forced the by-polls, the Congress and TD had posted victories in nine segments and the TRS in seven. Though the situation is different this time, the Congress and TD are still confidant of victory in at least five of the 12 seats.

“We expect surprise results this time too,” claimed leaders of both parties. As was reported earlier, there has been a tacit understanding between the Congress and the Telugu Desam, and both are helping each other in “vulnerable” constituencies.

At the beginning of the campaign, both Congress and TD had thought that their candidates and cadres involved in electioneering would not even be allowed to step into villages as both had been non-committal regarding their stand on Telangana.

In the case of TD, the party top brass has stopped even visiting the constituencies and left everything to the fate of the candidates. But surprisingly, the Congress and TD cadres were able to visit every village and were allowed to canvass without any hurdles.

This gave confidence to both parties and they started thinking of a surprise poll outcome like that of 2008. According to reports to their respective party headquarters, in segments like Nizamabad, Sircilla, Vemulawada, Huzurabad, Macheriyal and Sirpur there is going to be a close fight and results will not be one-sided. In Mancheriyal and Huzurabad the fight is between TRS and TD whereas in Nizamabad, Sircilla, Vemulawada and Sirpur it is a straight fight between the TRS and Congress.

As far as TRS leaders are concerned, they admit that Tuesday’s poll percentage will give an idea about who will emerge victorious based on the poll trends. “We expect brisk and heavy polling tomorrow so that the verdict will be decisively in our favour and for the T-cause,” said a leader.