All Eyes on MLC Bypoll Today, Cong, BRS to Shift 'Voters' from Camps

Hyderabad: All eyes are on the MLC byelection being held for Mahabubnagar local bodies constituency on Thursday. Both the ruling Congress and main opposition BRS have taken this election as a prestige issue and are going all out to win this seat. While the BRS is struggling to retain its seat, the Congress is trying to wrest the seat from the BRS.

Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy will cast his vote in his home constituency Kodangal as MLAs of combined Mahabubnagar district are allowed to cast votes as ex-officio members.

Elected representatives of local bodies, namely ZPTCs, MPTCs in Zilla and Mandal Parishads and councillors in municipalities are allowed to vote in this election. The opposition BRS has an absolute majority in local bodies as the party almost made a clean sweep in local bodies elections held in 2019.

Out of total 1,439 elected representatives in local bodies,who include ZPTCs, MPTCs and councillor, the BRS has a strength of 1,039 (71 per cent), Congress 241 (16.67 per cent), BJP 119 (8.23 per cent) and others 46 (3.18 per cent).

Based on these numbers, it should be a cakewalk for the BRS to win this election but nearly 700 elected leaders from other parties, mostly the BRS, have joined Congress in the past three months after the BRS lost power and the Congress formed the government in December 2023.

Alarmed at this, the BRS has shifted its about 526 elected representatives to camps in Goa and Ooty to prevent poaching by the Congress. The ruling Congress too shifted nearly 700 elected representatives to camps in Goa, Kodaikanal and few places in Andhra Pradesh.

Both the parties have made arrangements to bring these elected representatives directly to polling stations on the day of polling on Thursday to prevent poaching of their leaders by each other.

The Congress won 12 out of 14 Assembly seats in combined Mahabubnagar district while the BRS bagged two in recent Assembly polls. With this, Congress has a majority in terms of votes of ex-officio members as MLAs are allowed to vote in this election as ex-officio members.

The Congress has fielded Manney Jeevan Reddy as its candidate for the by-election while the BRS fielded Naveen Kumar Reddy. Election will be held on March 28 and counting of votes will take place on April 2.

The bypoll was necessitated following the resignation of BRS MLC Kasireddy Narayan Reddy, who joined the Congress just ahead of the Assembly polls, secured Congress Assembly ticket from Kalwakurthy constituency and won. He submitted his resignation to MLC post soon after his election as MLA.