HYDERABAD: Paint the town pink, for brand KCR has managed to bulldoze the four-party Front led by Congress and TDP. TRS did not just win the polls but did so with a stronger mandate compared to its first stint in the government.
The Congress, TDP and BJP, meanwhile, put up a weak show, recording numbers less than in 2014. AIMIM managed to retain the seven seats in its stronghold.
TRS was the only party in Telangana to improve its tally, riding comfortably on the back of the social welfare schemes announced and implemented over the last four years. But it wasn’t entirely a bed of roses.
The pink party saw four of its ministers -- Thummala Nageswara Rao (Palair), Patnam Mahender Reddy (Tandur), Jupally Krishna Rao (Kollapur) and Azmeera Chandulal (Mulugu) -- lose their seat.
Even the Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary (Bhupalpally) did not get elected. “We lost several seats due to internal bickering,” admitted TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Indeed, infighting was the reason for the loss of TRS candidates in Khammam and other places by slender margins. The real victory for TRS was in Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar, which were considered as Congress bastions.
The pink party wrested 13 of the 14 segments in Mahbubnagar and 9 of 12 in Nalgonda. TRS also had major victories in Serilngampally, Kukatpally, Uppal and Quthbullapur which are supposedly strongholds of “settlers” from Andhra Pradesh.
Despite its best efforts, the Congress-led Grand Alliance could not even come close to grabbing power in the State. Pollsters believe the “development and welfare” pitch of TRS outdid the “corrupt and family rule” attack of the Grand Alliance. Numerically, the Congress-TDP combine performed worse than in the previous elections.
Despite its tall claims and parading of national-level leaders in Telangana, BJP managed to win just one seat. This, again, is a substantial drop from the five seats it held in the previous Assembly. Despite its progressive stance, the CPM-led BLF did not manage to open its account at all. State Congress chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy repeated the much-discussed doubts over the functioning of voting machines.
BJP State president K Laxman, however, said his party would accept the verdict of the people. while AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi closed with the comment that “the nation needed leaders like KCR.”