Mulug dampens TRS dreams for 2nd time

Hyderabad: Candidates backed by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) swept the Gram Panchayat polls according to TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao on Thursday, but interestingly, the party lost twice in Mulug despite according the status of a district as demanded. After Chandu Lal, former minister, lost the Assembly seat to Seethakka in December 2018, Mulug was declared a district through a gazette notification.

This does not seem to have appeased voters as the Congress won the Mulug division centre. Bandaru Nirmala Harinatham has become Sarpanch with 2833 votes. She was closely followed by Independent candidate Gundrakota Sridevi, who received 2022 votes. TRS candidate S. Harika, got 1488 votes. The fight which was expected to be between the Congress and TRS was actually between the Congress and the Independent candidate.

To even things up, the TRS won in the Congress bastion of Nalgonda. In the 2013 gram panchayat elections, the TRS had no candidate in village Chintalapalem in Nalgonda. This time it has won in 526 panchayats while the Congress won in 265 gram panchayats.

While the Congress won nine out of 10 seats in the Assembly elections in Khammam, in the panchayat elections the Telugu Desam and the Congress together could not win even half that number. The TRS won 367 and the Congress 118.

The elections for 12,680 sarpanchs and 11,2460 ward members have now been completed. At one location, an auction was to be conducted to make the election unanimous but it was later cancelled. The polling percentage increased by 2.11 per cent compared to 2013. The percentage turnout in 2019 was 87.30. It was 85.19 per cent in 2013.