Hyderabad, October 01: The ruling Congress on Wednesday bagged five zilla parishads in the state by winning the chairperson posts in a
byelection.
With this the Congress now rules over 21 out of the 22 zilla parishads (ZP) in the state with the principal opposition Telugu Desam Party reduced to power in only Ranga Reddy ZP.
By engineering a split in the TDP which earlier had a majority, the Congress wrested the Adilabad zilla parishad where its candidate B Ganapathi was elected as the chairman.
Adilabad was a stronghold of TDP and its candidate Ramesh Rathod was the ZP chairman earlier. His election to the Lok Sabha in the April election caused the byelection.
After the general elections, the Congress under leadership of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy succeeded in getting 12 ZP members to its fold.
With the opposition parties TDP, TRS and BJP voting in its favour, the Congress managed to wrest the Karimnagar ZP as well.
Congress party S Lakshman Kumar managed to win the Karimnagar ZP’s chairman post with six TRS and two each of TDP and BJP members voting in his favour.
The Congress which has comfortable majority in Vizianagaram, Kurnool and West Godavari zilla parishads won the chairman posts unanimously.
A Venkataswamy, M Seshu Babu and B Chandrasekhar were elected chairman of Kurnool, West Godavari and Vizianagaram ZPs respectively.
“This has enhanced our responsibility to serve the people better,” chief minister K Rosaiah told reporters at the Secretariat.
–PTI–