Cherry-pick #8333 to v1.73.x

[arjan-bal]

Original PR: #8333
Related Issue: #8332

RELEASE NOTES: N/A

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 44.44444% with 5 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 82.18%. Comparing base (af5146b) to head (5438d3b).
Report is 1 commits behind head on v1.73.x.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
balancer/leastrequest/leastrequest.go	44.44%	4 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff             @@
##           v1.73.x    #8338      +/-   ##
===========================================
- Coverage    82.38%   82.18%   -0.20%     
===========================================
  Files          419      419              
  Lines        41992    42001       +9     
===========================================
- Hits         34596    34520      -76     
- Misses        5951     6013      +62     
- Partials      1445     1468      +23     

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
balancer/leastrequest/leastrequest.go	85.24% <44.44%> (-3.25%)	⬇️

... and 23 files with indirect coverage changes

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