Hyderabad City Folk Halt Congress Juggernaut, Party Draws a Blank

Hyderabad: Even as the Congress was winning all over the state, the BRS proved a thorn in the flesh in the capital by making a near sweep of the 25 Assembly constituencies located in and around Hyderabad. It won 17 seats while its ally AIMIM retained its seven strongholds and the BJP retained Goshamahal. The new ruling party has drawn a blank.

In Jubilee Hills the counting was temporarily halted with the Congress candidate Mohammed Azharuddin alleging that more than 25 EVMs had developed technical glitches. After the counting was resumed, his BRS opponent M. Gopinath won with a 15,939-vote majority.

Several people opined that the reason for BRS performing well in the city was its metamorphosis in terms of infrastructure, real estate boom and fears of political unrest, especially among Telanganites of Andhra origin (TAOs) if the BRS was voted out.

In the city, except for Malkajgiri and Uppal, the BRS fielded incumbent legislators.

In Malkajgiri with Mynamapally Hanumath Rao shifting loyalties to the Congress, the BRS fielded Marri Rajasekhar Reddy who defeated his Congress opponent. In Uppal, BRS dropped Bethi Subhas Reddy for Bandari Lakshma Reddy, who posted a comfortable win.

Serilingampally, Sanathnagar, Quthbullapur and Maheshwaram were some constituencies where the BRS candidates led all the way.

In Quthbullapur, K.P. Vivekanand won by a whopping 85,576-vote majority, leaving the BJP’s Kuna Srisailam Goud far behind. According to ECI data, Vivekanand won with the highest majority in the state.

In Khairatabad, Danam Nagender won with a majority of 22,010 votes over Congress candidate P. Vijaya Reddy while at Serilingampally Arekapudi Gandhi won with a 44,065-vote majority over V. Jagadeeshwar Goud (Congress). The Rajendranagar seat was pocketed by T. Prakash Goud with a 32,096 majority over BJP’s Thokala Srinivas Reddy.