AP by-polls: TRS, Congress suffer jolt; TDP gains

Hyderabad, June 1: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) received today a major setback as the ruling Congress and main Opposition Telugu Desam Party put up an impressive performance to wrest from it one Lok Sabha seat each and five and four MLA seats respectively in the May 29 bypolls.
The TRS erosion was glaring as it could retain in the byelections only two of the four MP seats and seven of the 16 MLA seats it had resigned en masse to press for separate Telangana state.

While the ruling Congress wrested Adilabad MP seat from the TRS, the TDP dislodged the TRS to win from Warangal Lok Sabha constituency, considered as the cradle of Telangana movement. However, the TRS retained Hanamkonda Lok Sabha seat. The TRS, which relied upon the Telangana sentiment, failed to click this time, as its Floor Leader in the Assembly K Vijayarama Rao lost to TDP's K Srihari at Ghanpur, while former TRS Minister A Chandrasekhar forfeited his deposit in Vikarabad and another former Minister N Narasimha Reddy stood in fourth position in Musheerabad won by the Congress.

The ruling Congress received a shot in the arm as its nominees won these seats, which it had not represented ever since the TDP's formation in 1983. The TDP improved its performance to wrest one-fourth of the 16 Assembly seats it had lost in the 2004 Assembly elections fought together by the Congress-TRS combine.

Former Union Labour Minister K Chandrasekar Rao, who had retained the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat with a thumping majority of over two lakh votes last year, won this time with a much reduced margin of 15,219 votes over his nearest Congress rival and former Roads and Buildings Minister T Jeevan Reddy.

UNI