Congress at nadir in Andhra Pradesh; no party member in new Assembly

Hyderabad: Once its stronghold, the Congress will now be without a representative in the new Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, where it failed to win a single seat, getting swept aside by a strong wave against the party in the wake of bifurcation of the state.

The new Andhra Pradesh Assembly (minus Telangana) will formally come into being on June 2. This is the first time in history that India's oldest party has failed to get even a single member elected to the Assembly that will have a total strength of 175 members (post-bifurcation).

The Congress' worst-ever electoral performance in (united) Andhra Pradesh was in 1994 when it won just 26 seats in the 294-member Assembly and did not even qualify to be the main Opposition party.

Now, it erased its own dubious record and set another, winning only 21 seats in the 294-member Assembly (Seemandhra plus Telangana) as technically it remains one as of now.

All the 21 seats will be in the 119-member Telangana Legislative Assembly, which comes into existence on June 2.

The new House in the residuary AP will have representatives from only three main parties - Telugu Desam, YSR Congress and BJP.

Interestingly, former Congress MLA Amanchi Krishna Mohan has been re-elected to the Assembly, this time as the nominee of little known Navodayam Party from Chirala.

TDP, which will rule the state, won 103 seats, while its electoral ally BJP bagged three.

YSR Congress, which was seen as a strong contender for power, but had to be content with the Opposition party status, got 67 seats.

One Independent, who was actually a rebel candidate of the TDP, also got elected to the House.

Meanwhile, 18 women have been elected MLAs. However, one of them has been elected posthumously, as she died in a road accident days before the polling on May 7.

In 2009 too, 18 women were elected from the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.