TRS sweeps mini-municipal polls in Telangana

A day after retaining the Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly seat, the ruling TRS has won two corporations and five municipalities that went to polls on Friday.

With the total dominance in the “mini-municipal polls,” the TRS will now rule the Warangal, Khammam municipal corporations and Siddipet, Nakrekal, Achampet, Jedcherla, and Kothur municipalities.

The back-to-back electoral successes offer a big relief to the TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao after the Dubbaka assembly bye-poll and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation election debacles in November and December, respectively, last year.

Read | Telangana bypolls: TRS retains Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly seat

Following the announcement of the results, Chief Minister Rao thanked the voters for the victory where the TRS won 74 per cent of the total wards in the seven civic bodies.

“By electing the TRS in 181 seats, friendly CPI party in three, and in total 184 seats of the 248 wards, people have proved that the TRS party is unvanquished in the state,” Rao said.

BJP's dismal performance

The Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll and the civic poll results show that the BJP, which stunned the TRS with its performance in Dubbaka and GHMC, was not able to expand its influence elsewhere in the state.

While the Congress gave a tough fight to the TRS in the Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll, the BJP finished third, managing to garner only four per cent of the total votes.

The Congress party has won more number of wards than the BJP in the civic polls.

The BJP has also lost one of the wards it had won in the December GHMC polls to the Congress. The Lingojiguda ward of GHMC went to bypolls as the elected BJP councilor had died. While the TRS has kept away from the contest following the local BJP leadership's request, the Congress sprung a surprise by defeating the BJP candidate and improving its GHMC tally to three councilors.