india

Updated: Mar 27, 2019 17:25 IST

In a first setback to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) after its resounding victory in the recent assembly elections, all the three candidates supported by it - including two sitting members - lost the elections to the state legislative council.

The polling for two MLC seats under teachers’ constituencies and one seat under the graduates’ constituency were held on March 22 and the counting of votes took place on Tuesday. The results were declared in the early hours of Wednesday.

Interestingly, the Congress, which has virtually lost its presence in the upper house after the recent elections to the MLC seats under MLAs’ quota, managed to stage a comeback with senior leader and former minister T Jeevan Reddy winning the MLC elections from the Karimnagar-Adilabad-Nizamabad-Medak graduates constituency.

Reddy, who lost the assembly elections in Jagtial constituency to the TRS, defeated his nearest rival Mamindla Chandrashekhar Goud, a retired bureaucrat, supported by the TRS, by a margin of 39,430 votes. While the Congress leader got 56,698 votes, Goud managed to get just 17,268 votes. BJP-backed P Sugunakara Rao came in third with 15,077 votes.

“It is a slap on the face of the TRS, which has been boasting of having the support of the people. I am glad thousands of educated youth, government employees and unemployed graduates voted for me and showed their disgruntlement towards the TRS government,” Reddy said.

Another Congress-backed candidate K Raghotham Reddy of Progressive Recognised Teachers’ Union (PRTU), won the Karimnagar-Adilabad-Nizamabad-Medak teachers constituency by defeating B Mohan Reddy by a margin of 1,707 votes. Outgoing MLC Paturi Sudhakar Reddy, who had been the TRS chief whip in the legislative council, stood in the fourth position.

Similarly, another sitting MLC Pula Ravinder, also a prominent TRS leader, was defeated in the MLC elections in Nalgonda-Khammam-Warangal teachers constituency. He was defeated by A Narsi Reddy by a margin of nearly 3,000 votes. Reddy contested on behalf of the United Teachers’ Federation (UTF) and was supported by the Congress and the CPI.

Congress spokesman Dasoju Sravan said the results clearly established the fact that the TRS had won the assembly elections through sheer manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines. “The MLC elections were held using ballot papers. Hence, the result was different. I am sure the same verdict will be repeated in the April 11 Lok Sabha elections as well,” he said.

In the assembly elections held in December, the TRS swept the polls by winning 88 out of 119 assembly seats. Later, its tally went up to 100 with the defection of nine Congress MLAs, two independents and a TDP MLA.

The TRS has not officially reacted to the results. However, a TRS leader said on condition of anonymity that the defeated candidates were not the party’s official nominees. “Moreover, the party did not pay much attention to the MLC elections as it is busy with the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.