HYDERABAD, India, 2 June 2008 — Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) yesterday suffered a serious setback in by-elections, conceding nine assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats to the ruling Congress and main opposition Telugu Desam Party.
TRS, which spearheads a movement for the formation of a separate Telangana state, won seven out of 16 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats out of four for which by-elections were held on May 29. The by-elections were necessitated by the mass resignation of TRS lawmakers in March.
As soon as the counting of votes began yesterday morning, it became evident that TRS was in trouble. The party founder and former federal Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who contested the Karimnagar parliamentary seat, scraped through and retained the seat by a slender margin. TRS candidate B. Vinod Kumar also retained the Hanamkonda Lok Sabha seat with a grossly reduced majority.
Congress wrested Adilabad Lok Sabha seat from TRS. Congress candidate and former MP A. Indrakaran Reddy scored an impressive victory over his nearest rival from TDP S. Venugoopalachary. TDP wrested Warangal Lok Sabha seat from TRS when its candidate Erabelli Dayakar Rao emerged victorious. Incidentally, TRS was relegated to third position in both these constituencies.
Chandrasekhar Rao, who had termed the by-elections as a referendum on the Telangana statehood issue, offered to quit the party president’s post.
TRS retained seven Assembly seats — Alair, Dommat, Siddipet, Huzurabad, Kamalapur, Cherial and Myadaram.
Congress wrested five assembly seats from TRS, namely, Dichpally, Yellareddy, Vikarabad, Jadcherla and Musheerabad. Another four assembly seats — Ramayampet, Station Ghanpur, Khanapur and Secunderabad — were wrested by TDP from TRS.
Overall, Congress bagged six assembly seats, including the Khairatabad constituency where the by-election was necessitated by the death of Congress leader P. Janardhan Reddy six months ago. The TDP’s tally stood at five assembly seats, including Therlam, where the election was caused by the death of TDP MLA Tentu Jayaprakash last year.
The blow from both Congress and TDP was so severe that at some places TRS candidates were pushed to the third position as the main fight turned out to be between Congress and TDP. In a couple of constituencies, TRS candidates even lost their security deposits, showing the absence of Telangana sentiment in remote areas of this backward region.
The TRS leadership was shell-shocked over the reverses. Chandrasekhar Rao, who had prompted his party members to quit their elected posts en masse to mount pressure on the Congress-led federal UPA government to concede a separate Telangana state, was crest-fallen. He told his confidants that he would quit as party chief and even resign his Lok Sabha seat for the third time in three years, owning moral responsibility for the party’s indifferent show in the by-elections. The TRS leadership is now worried over the party’s prospects in the 2009 elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assembly.
