Hyderabad, July 31: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), which won all 11 seats it contested in the Telangana by-elections, made history with its massive victory margins.
Riding on the popular Telangana sentiment, the party not only retained all 10 seats it won in the 2009 elections but also wrested one from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
TRS had not fielded its candidate in Nizamabad Urban where BJP’s A. Lakshminarayana once again defeated state Congress chief D. Srinivas.
Its candidates, who won last elections with a few hundreds votes, retained the seats by a bumper majority. The victory margin in most of the constituencies was anywhere between 60,000 to 95,000.
Political pundits say a candidate polling 70 to 85 percent of votes in assembly elections is unprecedented. The TRS performance reminds one of the massive victory of the Telangana Praja Samiti (TPS) in the 1971 Lok Sabha elections.
Fighting on the similar slogan, TPS had bagged 10 out of 14 seats it contested in Telangana. But even the TPS had polled 50 to 65 percent of votes.
The performance of TRS this time has been so strong that the ruling Congress finished a poor second while TDP candidates lost security deposit as they failed to get the minimum of one-sixth of the total votes polled in their respective constituencies.
TRS leader T. Harish Rao registered a record victory with a margin of 95,858 votes in Siddipet, polling 82 percent of votes. His nearest rival of the Congress could get only 12,921. Both Congress and TDP forfeited their deposits.
The second highest margin of victory for TRS was in Huzurabad where its former leader in assembly E. Rajender retained the seat with a majority of 79,227 votes. The margin was 78,047 in Manchiryal constituency.
Since ballot papers were used for Tuesday’s polling in five constituencies, the results were announced after Friday midnight.
TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao’s son K. Tarakarama Rao, who won last election with a margin of 171 in Sircilla, this time defeated his rival by 67,997 votes.
In Warangal West, D. Vinaybhaskar was re-elected with a majority of 67,809 votes. Former minister and Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir was defeated in Yellareddy by TRS candidate A. Ravinder Reddy by 37,535 votes.
TRS also retained Korutla seat with a victory margin of 56,525 votes.
The Congress could put up some face-saving performance only in Nizamabad where the BJP candidate’s victory margin was only 11,981 votes. It also gave a good fight to TRS in Sirpur.
In its worst ever performance, TDP lost security deposits in all constituencies.
The by-elections were necessitated by the resignation of all 10 legislators of the TRS and one each of the BJP and the TDP on the issue of a separate Telangana state in February.
–IANS