Telangana Polls 2023: BJP bigwigs lose polls, new faces spring surprise

Etala Rajender, who contested from Huzurabad and Gajwel, lost both the seats

Hyderabad: There were many surprise losers and winners for the BJP in this election. Some of the BJP bigwigs who lost their seats this election were Huzurabad MLA Etala Rajender, Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay, Dubbak MLA M Raghunandan Rao and Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind.

On the other hand, there were some surprise winners such as Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy, Dhanpal Suryanarayana, Paidi Rakesh Reddy, Ram Rao Panwar, A Maheshwar Reddy, Payal Shanker and Palvai Harish Babu.

---

Etala, who contested from Huzurabad and Gajwel, lost both the seats. He was defeated in Gajwel by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and in Huzurabad by Padi Kaushik Reddy of the BRS.

Similarly, Bandi Sanjay was defeated by sitting BRS MLA and Minister Gangula Kamalakar. Dharmapuri Arvind, who contested from Koratla constituency was defeated by BRS candidate Kalvakuntla Sanjay. Raghunandan Rao could not defend his Dubbaka seat and lost to BRS candidate Kotha Prabhakar Reddy.

Among the surprise winners, Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy emerged as a giant killer by defeating Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy in Kamareddy constituency. Another surprise winner was Dhanpal Suryanarayana, who conveniently won from Nizamabad Urban constituency by defeating his nearest rival Mohammad Ali Shabbir of Congress.

Paidi Rakesh Reddy, who had contested assembly polls for the first time, won from Armoor constituency by defeating his nearest rival Prodduturi Vinay Kumar Reddy of Congress.

Ram Rao Panwar surprised everyone by winning the Mudhole seat. He defeated BRS candidate Gaddigari Vittal Reddy. Even former MLA A Maheshwar Reddy, who joined the BJP from Congress, won the Nirmal seat by defeating BRS MLA Allola Indrakaran Reddy.

Adilabad BJP president Payal Shanker too was a surprise winner, who defeated BRS candidate and former minister Jogu Ramanna. Even Palvai Harish Babu surprised everyone by defeating BRS candidate Koneru Konappa and Bahujan Samaj Party State president RS Praveen Kumar.