BJP’s Raghunandan Rao held the lead in multiple rounds of counting.
From the get-go, BJP’s Raghunandan Rao remained the favorite in multiple rounds of counting. Telangana Rashtra Samithi candidate Solipeta Sujatha took the lead for the first time in the 19th round alone, with about 250 votes. Even that didn’t last. Rao tasted victory today after three consecutive defeats in the district.
Telangana electoral director Shashank Goel has said that votes in four EVMs have not been counted due to technical problems, but that that may not change the result of the bypoll.
In admitting defeat, TRS Acting Chairman KT Rama Rao said this should be a wake-up call for party leaders not to be complacent with the party’s position in the state.
Municipal elections will be held in Hyderabad in a couple of months and the BJP would hope to bring the momentum of Dubbak’s victory to the Battle of Hyderabad.
Dubbak had turned into a high stakes battle for the three main political parties in the fight. TRS had housed the seated MLA’s widow, Solipeta Ramalinga Reddy, whose death had necessitated the bypoll. Finance Minister Harish Rao, who is also the prime minister’s nephew, was the party’s chief strategist in the bypoll.
The BJP had put Raghunandan Rao in even though he lost the assembly elections in 2014 and 2018 and also the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from here. With a new head of the state party in Bandi Sanjay, the deputy from Karimnagar, the BJP seemed to put all their strength to win this one.
In the run-up to the elections, there were multiple seizures of huge amounts of cash that were tied to the BJP candidate, although the TRS claimed that the BJP candidate would lose his deposit.
Dubbak has high-profile constituencies for neighbors. Medak is represented by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Sircilla by his son, and Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao and Siddipet by Harish Rao. Opposition parties told voters that while these neighboring districts were spoiled, Dubbaka had been neglected.
This is the second MLA segment for the BJP in Telangana. The only other seat represented by Raja Singh of BJP in Goshamahal. The party has four deputies in the state of Secunderabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, and Adilabad.
The candidate for Congress was Ch Srinivas Reddy, son of Ch Muthyam Reddy, who had represented Dubbak after the 2009 elections.
The match, which recently put Manickam Tagore in charge of Telangana, also hoped Dubbak would serve as a turning point for the match, which has been in decline since 2014. But that was not the case.
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