Change of guard in Telangana

The Congress won a decisive mandate in the country’s youngest State of Telangana, wresting power from the BRS with its ‘maarpu kaavali’ slogan after counting was completed for the 119 constituencies in the State on Sunday

Hyderabad: The Congress won a decisive mandate in the country’s youngest State of Telangana, wresting power from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi with its ‘maarpu kaavali’ (change is needed) slogan after counting was completed for the 119 constituencies in the State on Sunday.

The Congress won 64 seats, while the BRS won 39 seats. The State had gone to polls on November 30, and registered a polling percentage of 71.34. Counting began in 49 counting centres at 8 am on Sunday.

---

As for the other parties, the AIMIM was declared victor in five and was leading in two in its traditional strongholds in Hyderabad, with Akbaruddin Owaisi winning from Chandrayangutta by 81,660 votes. The CPI’s lone candidate Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao, who contested in an alliance with the Congress, won comfortably from Kothagudem, while the CPI (M) drew a nil.

The BJP, which made significant gains in comparison with its single-seat victory in 2018, won 8 seats this time. These included the Kamareddy seat where its candidate K Venkata Ramana Reddy emerged a giant killer by defeating the two biggest names of this Assembly election – K Chandrashekhar Rao and A Revanth Reddy.

Rao and Reddy however secured comfortable victories in their regular constituencies of Gajwel and Kodangal respectively. While Chandrashekhar Rao trounced the BJP’s Etala Rajendar by 45,031 votes in Gajwel, Revanth Reddy defeated BRS candidate Patnam Narender Reddy by 32,532 votes.

Even as the Congress continued to keep its winning candidates in a close huddle in a star hotel in the city, with Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shiva Kumar managing affairs, reports indicated that a swearing-in ceremony could be organized either on Monday itself, or on December 9.

Meanwhile, BRS working president KT Rama Rao, conceding his party’s defeat, congratulated the Congress on the victory in Telangana and extended his best wishes to the party. Expressing his gratitude to the people of Telangana for giving the BRS two consecutive terms, he said he was ‘not saddened over the result’, but ‘surely disappointed’ as it was not on expected lines. Rama Rao, on the personal front, secured a comfortable victory by a margin of 29,687 votes in Sircilla.

The results on Sunday, which saw quite a few BRS candidates win by huge margins, including Finance Minister T Harish Rao and KP Vivekanand, also saw six Ministers losing, right from Errabelli Dayakar Rao, Allola Indrakaran Reddy, Singireddy Niranjan Reddy to V Srinivas Goud, Koppula Eshwar and Puvvada Ajay Kumar. The Congress had some stinging loses too, including that of Mynampally Hanumanth Rao, Mohammed Shabbir Ali, T Jagga Reddy, Mohammed Azharuddin and Anjan Kumar Yadav.

For the BJP, the biggest shock was the twin defeat of Etala Rajender and that of Bandi Sanjay Kumar. While Sanjay Kumar’s loss was by less than 4,000 votes, Etala’s losses were by huge margins, including to a young Padi Kaushik Reddy in Huzurabad, considered to be Etala’s bastion.