All the five candidates fielded by the ruling TRS party in the MLC elections from MLAs quota have won. The sixth seat was gained by Congress nominee Akula Lalitha by polling all the 18 votes of that party.
The election was held for six vacancies in the Telangana Legislative Council on Monday. TDP candidate Vem Narendar Reddy lost the election. While five votes were cast under NOTA under TDP-BJP combine, it was not known whether the NOTA votes were cast by BJP or TDP members.
The victorious new MLCs are: Kadiam Srihari, Tummala Nageshwara Rao, B. Venkateswarlu, Neti Vidyasagar Rao and K. Yadava Reddy – all belonging to TRS. The sixth seat went in favour of Congress nominee Akula Lalitha.
Though the ruling TRS had strength to win only four MLC seats, party supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao took the MLC polls as a prestige issue and fielded a fifth candidate and spared no efforts to win the fifth seat also. It may be mentioned here KCR has threatened to dissolve the Assembly and go in for snap polls if any one of his candidates lost election. His strategy worked and all his nominees came out successful.
On Sunday night, TDP MLA A Revanth Reddy was trapped by the ACB while he was wooing and offering Rs 50 lakh out of Rs 5 crore to nominated MLA Elvin Stephenson to cast his vote to the TDP candidate. There are 120 members in the Telangana Assembly, including one nominated MLA. Of them, two members of Left parties remained neutral and kept themselves away from the poll. The remaining 118 members, including disgraced Revanth Reddy of the TDP exercised their franchise. (NSS)
