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What BJP wresting Telangana's Dubbaka from TRS means

The victory is significant since the saffron party was confined to the third position, after the TRS and the Congress, in the previous two Assembly polls here
Last Updated 10 November 2020, 15:20 IST

In a nail-biting finish of the bypoll vote counting, the BJP has wrested the Dubbaka Assembly seat from the ruling TRS with a majority of 1,079 votes.

The victory is significant since the saffron party was confined to the third position, after the TRS and the Congress, in the previous two Assembly polls here.

BJP's Raghunandan Rao received 63,352 votes against TRS's Solipeta Sujatha's 62,273. Cheruku Srinivas Reddy of Congress got 22,196 votes, out of a total of 1.64 lakh votes polled in the rural constituency, about 100km north of Hyderabad.

The BJP's Telangana Assembly tally would now become two, with Raghunandan joining Raja Singh, a firebrand leader representing Goshamahal in Hyderabad. The party's MLAs were reduced to one in 2018 from five in 2014.

However, analysts say the conquest of a constituency seen as a TRS bastion would majorly aid the BJP trying to consolidate its presence in Telangana.

With the Congress party seen as becoming infirm, the BJP has set the target of becoming the principal political challenger to K Chandrashekar Rao by the 2023 Assembly polls.

The victory coming ahead of the Hyderabad civic polls in January has the BJP charged now.

The BJP says that Rao has become arrogant with power in his second term and accuses him of running a “dictatorial and corrupt regime".

And party leaders are claiming that the defeat of TRS as an indication that people want change.

“The verdict has satisfied the entire state. Thank you Dubbaka, this is the seed for the future,” said DK Aruna, BJP's National Vice President, who earlier served as a Congress minister in united Andhra Pradesh.

Tuesday's defeat is seen as a major setback for Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's party, after the BJP's unexpected triumph in four Lok Sabha seats in Telangana in 2019.

The Dubbaka result could also shake up the TRS, which has been winning the civic and bypolls effortlessly till now. The TRS seized the Congress party-held Huzurnagar Assembly with a huge majority in October last year. The party also showed total dominance in the civic body polls in January.

“The Dubbaka outcome has, in a way, alerted us. We would analyse the reasons for the defeat and plan our future strategy to retain the public faith in us,” said TRS working president and KCR's son KT Rama Rao.

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(Published 10 November 2020, 15:05 IST)

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