TRS suffers severe blow as Cong, TDP wrests seats

Hyderabad, Jun 1 (UNI) The ruling Congress and the main Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) scored impressive gains, wresting one MP seat each and five and four Assembly seats respectively from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in the May 29 byelections today.

The TRS suffered a serious blow winning only two of the four MP seats and seven of the 16 MLA seats it had contested.

While ruling Congress retained the Khairatabad Assembly seat fielding the kin of its deceased Legislator, the TDP retained the Therlam Assembly seat in North Coastal Andhra giving the ticket to kin of its deceased MLA.

Two MP candidates and nine MLA candidates of the TRS, which forced the byelections by en masse resignation and projected the bypolls as a referendum on the Telangana issue, bit the dust.

Its president and former Union Labour Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao scrapped through with a thin margin of 15,289 votes compared to the thumping over two lakh votes margin in the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency after trailing behind his nearest Congress rival and former Roads and Buildings Minister T Jeevan Reddy initially.

While TDP candidate E Dayakar Rao wrested the Warangal Lok Sabha seat from TRS candidate D Ravindra Naik, Congress candidate A Indirakaran Reddy wrested the Adilabad Lok Sabha seat from TRS candidate T Madhusudhan Reddy.

However, TRS candidate B Vinod retained his Hanamkonda Lok Sabha seat defeating Congress candidate Konda Surekha.

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