Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) suffered a major setback as the party faced an unexpected reversal at the hands of rivals Congress and the BJP. Much less than the target of 16 seats set by the party supremo and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS managed to win only eight seats while BJP, written off by many observers won four seats and Congress also bagged equal number of seats. Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen retained its hold over Hyderabad and its president Asaduddin Owaisi won the seat for the fourth consecutive term.
The biggest shock for the TRS came from Nizamabad where Chief Minister KCR’s daughter K Kavitha was defeated by the BJP’s Dharmapuri Aravind.
While retaining Secunderabad seat, BJP also bagged two other north Telangna seats of Adilabad and Karimnagar.
In Karimnagar Bandi Sanjay defeated sitting TRS MP B Vinod Kumar. Soyam Bapu Rao won Adilabad seat for the BJP. In Secunderabad which was the only seat bagged by the BJP In 2014, G Kishan Reddy emerged the winner defeating T Saikiran Reddy of TRS by a margin of 27000 votes.
Congress won four seats of Malkajgiri, Chevella, Bhongir and Nalgonda. In Malkajgiri A Revanth Reddy avenged his defeat of assembly election by winning the Lok Sabha seat. He defeated Rajasekhar Reddy of TRS with a narrow margin of 6270 votes.
Bhongir seat was bagged for Congress by K Venkat Reddy and Chevella was won by Visweshwara Reddy. State Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy was elected from Nalgonda seat.
Eight seats won by the TRS include Nagakurnool (SC), Mahbubnagar, Warangal (SC), Hanmakonda, Khammam, Peddapally (SC), Medak and Zaheerabad.
In Khammam Nama Nageshwara Rao of TRS defeated Renuka Chowdhary of Congress.
In Nagarkurnool (SC) Ramulu of TRS won by a margin of 182,000 votes. In Zaheerabad BB Patil of TRS emerged victorious.
For the MIM celebrating the victory of its president Asaduddin Owaisi over his nearest rival Bhagwant Rao of BJP another good news came from Aurangabad where its candidate Imtiyaz Jaleel achieved victory. He was the joint candidate of MIM and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi of Prakash Ambedkar. He wrested the seat from the Shiv Sena ending its more than two decade old hold over the seat.
For the Chief Minister KCR poor performance of TRS was a double whammy as he was eyeing a crucial role at the Centre and was hoping to use his 16-17 member contingent of MPs as a bargaining chip. Not only the massive sweep by the BJP at the national level left no window of opportunity for him but the poor performance by TRS has left position vulnerable on the home ground.
Now the TRS will have to contend with a more aggressive BJP and Congress in the state. observers say that by weakening the Congress by luring its one dozen legislators, TRS has paved the way for the emergence of BJP as major force.
TRS’ performance came as a shock to many as its had swept the assembly elections less than six months back, bagging 88 of 119 assembly seats. The party leaders have blamed a nexus between BJP and Congress for the reversal.
