Congress sweeps ZP elections: TDP wins only two seats

Hyderabad, July 10 (UNI) The Congress recorded a resounding victory in the Zilla Parishad (ZP) elections throughout the state while Telugu Desam Party (TDP) would win only two seats in Ranga Reddy and Adilabad districts.

In Anantapur, the Congress won the ZP Chairman post amid high drama when the two dissident members of the TDP, who got a slender margin of two seats, defected to Congress. Ms T Kavita of the Congress was declared elected Chairman amid pandemmoneum as the TDP members protested against the defection of their members.

TDP workers later staged a dharna at the SP office alleging that Panchayat Raj Minister J C Diwakar Reddy and Agriculture Minister N Raghuveera Reddy engineered the defections, offering money to their members.

The elections to Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Warangal ZP Chairmen elections were countermanded.

The Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samiti(TRS) members, who fought the election for Chairman and Vice-Chairman posts together in Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Warangal districts, abstained from the general body meeting as they could not arrive at an agreement on sharing of power. Though TDP and BJP members attended the meeting, as the meeting lacked quorum, the District Collector postponed the election to tomorrow.

In Khammam where there was a tie between both the Congress-CPI combine and TDP-CPI(M) combine, the posts of Chairman and Vice Chairman were decided through toss. Luck however did not favour the TDP-CPI(M) combine in both elections. While Ms Vijayalakshmi of the Congress won the post of Chairman, Mr Ayodhyachary of the CPI was elected as the Vice-Chairman.

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