Hyderabad: After promising throughout the campaign to be a cliffhanger, the Huzurnagar byelection finally seems to have tilted on voting day towards S. Saidi Reddy, the candidate of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). Despite political analysts portending a clean win for the TRS, punters are still able to inveigle huge amounts on bets about the likely winner of the politically crucial bypoll battle.
According to sources, Mumbai-based bookies are offering an incredible equal amount to punters on their bets either side, be it the TRS or the Congress; with no takers or interest for other candidates, including the meek also-rans of the BJP and TD. Bookies were reportedly offering 95 paisa per rupee to punters for a bet in favour either TRS or Congress.
Estimates put the likely amount of money put on bets only on Huzurnagar in Mumbai circles at about Rs 50 crore.
In addition to this, some local politicians and businessmen were placing huge bets amongst close circles and personally organised betting games.
The Huzurnagar byelection had created an unusually huge interest in political circles as both the TRS and the Congress had made it a battle of high stakes, making the result a pointer to not only their acceptance and strength, but also a crucial factor to future narrative.
Generally, most bookies conduct their own surveys and base the calculation of odds and the rewards they offer to punters based on these survey findings.
With bookies offering the same amount of money on TRS and Congress should indicate that whoever wins in Huzurnagar may get a small majority and the fight would be close. However, most political and media exit polls, besides professional surveys conducted by some agencies predict a big victory for the TRS.
In the December elections, the bookies had favoured the TRS retaining power, In the byelections, they are unable to predict a winner.
As a Congress inside said, “till last evening, it felt we we were heading for a big win. But the money pumped in the last few hours seem to have swung the battle towards the TRS.” A TRS leader said, “We are headed for a huge win, as expected.”
