BJP decimated in Telangana; loses top leaders

Hyderabad: The BJP received a major setback in Telangana and more so in the state capital with senior party leaders including its State president, K Laxman and two-time MLA from Amberpet G Kishan Reddy losing to their TRS rivals.

Chintala Ramachandra Reddy another senior BJP leader lost from Khairiatabad while party MLC Ramchandra Rao lost from the Malkajgiri Assembly seat. Former MLA from Uppal NVSS Prabhakar ended up third in the race behind Tulla Veerender Goud of TDP. Dr. Laxman the State president of BJP and MLA from Musheerabad also ended at the third place in the race from Musheerabad. Party strongman and former president of the party’s state unit, G Kishan Reddy also lost the Amberpet seat to rival Kaleru Venkatesham from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Amberpet was a bastion of the BJP, where Kishan, the floor leader of the BJP, had won three consecutive terms.

The party could manage to retain only one MLA seat out of five sitting BJP MLAs. Only Raja Singh won the Goshamahal Assembly seat for a second term. However, he too had a tough fight with Prem Singh Rathore of the TRS. The margin of the Raja Singh also dropped significantly. He is known for his communally divisive statements. In the 2014 elections, Singh won with a margin of 46,793 against Goud while this time he won with 17,734 votes.

It must not be out of place to mention here that BJP is decimated in Telangana despite the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and several other star campaigners including Yogi Adityanath had campaigned in the state.