By poll result: Opposition fail to pin down ruling parties
BJP had improved its vote from 15 to 18%, while the Congress vote had come down from 22 to 20%
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-09-17 00:55 GMT
Hyderabad: Opposition parties failed miserably to pin down the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments on their perceived failures during the bypoll. Their aim was to reduce the margin of victory of the TRS in the Medak Lok Sabha bypoll in Telangana and the Telugu Desam in the Nandigama byelection in AP.
Tuesday’s results indicate that the electoral supremacy the TRS established in Medak and the TD in Nandigama has not been dented. Telangana PCC president Ponnala Lakshmaiah took responsibility for the Congress’ poor performance in Medak. He said despite the drubbing, the party will continue its opposition to the TRS government which, according to him, failed to implement any of the promises it had made.
According to Medak Congress leaders, though a big show was put up by the party during campaign, party workers did not move into villages to garner support for Ms Suneetha Laxma Reddy. There was no official reaction from the BJP on its poor performance, though it had claimed that the outcome would be “stunning.”
At a brief meeting held by Telangana BJP president G. Kishan Reddy, party leaders who reviewed the poll results came to the conclusion that BJP had improved its vote percentage from 15 to 18, while the Congress vote had come down from 22 to 20 per cent of total votes polled.
They pointed out that the TRS secured 54 per cent of the votes against 57 in the general elections. In Nandigama in AP, it was a one-sided win as the YSRC, the principal Opposition party, did not contest the bypoll. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Tangirala Prabhakar almost immediately after the general elections. The TD had fielded his daughter Soumya and she romped home with 99,748 votes.
Her late father had won with a 78,721-vote margin.
The only solace for the Congress was that its candidate Bodapati Baburao got 24,921 votes and retained his deposit.
In May, the Congress had got 2,008 votes in Nandigama and lost its deposit. In fact, the party had lost its deposit in 173 of the 175 seats in AP, with only former PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana and his brother Appala Narasiah making it past the mark.
APCC president Raghuveera Reddy expressed satisfaction over the outcome and said the Congress will continue to oppose all the anti-people policies of the TD.
He did not agree that the Congress show improved because the YSRC stayed away. “If that was the reason all the YSRC votes should have been transferred to us. Congress got the votes on its own and not due to any other consideration,” he said.