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Huzurnagar byelections: Saidi Reddy wins it big with margin of 43,358 votes

Huzurnagar: The ‘TRS show’ in Telangana continued with the ruling party wresting Huzurnagar from three-time winner Congress in the byelections, the result of which was declared here on Thursday. TRS candidate Saidi Reddy won the seat with a majority of 43,358 votes. He polled 1,13,095 votes, while his Congress rival and TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy’s wife N Padmavathi Reddy received 69,737 votes.



BJP, which is busy making plans to unseat TRS in 2023 assembly polls after its stupendous show in the April Lok Sabha polls, was relegated to the fourth spot. Independent candidate Sapavath Suman came third behind Padmavathi. TDP fared poorly with the voters shutting the doors on the party.

Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, at a press conference in Hyderabad, said the people gave a resounding victory to TRS despite cancelling the public rally due to inclement weather. This is the first time that TRS had won Huzurnagar after the constituency was carved out during delimitation in 2009. Uttam had won the seat with 7,000-vote majority in the December polls.

Ruling party leaders said the win was an endorsement of KCR’s governance and his ‘pro-people’ decisions. “Thursday’s victory will allow the CM to take bold decisions and put an end to internal squabbling over the talk of protagonists of Telangana statehood being sidelined,” a senior leader said.

Analysts said though TRS had suffered a setback in the Lok Sabha polls, the win has reinforced the fact that it is the only party enjoying the confidence of people.

For that matter, TRS has kept its record of not losing a byelection since 2009.

With TRS walking away with the win, political analysts said it would be a huge challenge to Congress and BJP to take on the ruling party in the municipal polls, which are likely to be held in November.

This victory is also a major blow to Congress and BJP, both of which have been claiming themselves as an alternative to TRS after winning three and four Lok Sabha seats respectively. “The hopes of revival of Congress took a severe beating with this verdict. It will be a challenging task for any leader to revive Congress in Telangana,” a senior analyst said.

Though BJP managed to increase its votes’ tally from 1,555 in December 2018 to 2,639 (received by party candidate Kota Rama Rao) in October 2019, the saffron party could not debunk the theories by TRS that its four wins in Lok Sabha polls was just a fluke.

Independent Suman polled 2,697 votes, while Kiranmayi got 1,827 votes. Apart from BJP and TDP candidates, 26 of the total 28 candidates thus lost their deposits.

Uttam, who had won the seat thrice in 2009, 2014 and 2018, resigned following his victory from Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat.

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