HYDERABAD: Congress giant and seven-time MLA K Jana Reddy was slayed by TRS debutant and techie-turned-politician Nomula Bhagath in the hotly contested Nagarjunasagar bypoll. Though 74-year-old Jana Reddy had gone all out to ensure his victory in the bypoll, requesting the voters to “Save Democracy” by voting for the Congress, his efforts went in vain.
Meanwhile, Bhagath defeated Jana by a much higher margin than the one with which his father, Nomula Narsimhaiah, won the constituency last time. Narsimhaiah, in 2018, defeated Jana by 7,774 votes. In the competition for supremacy between the Congress and TRS, the BJP failed to even position itself as a worthy opponent, while its candidate Dr P Ravi Kumar Naik lost his deposit.
It may be recalled that the bypoll, held on April 17, was necessitated by the sudden demise of Narsimhaiah. As per the bypoll result available on the Election Commission of India website, Bhagath won by a margin of 18,872 votes. While the TRS polled 89,804 votes, the Congress got 70,932 and the BJP just 7,676 votes. Coming to the vote share, while the TRS secured 47.1 per cent of all the valid votes polled, the Congress received 37.1 per cent and the saffron party just four per cent.
