Hyderabad: The Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) candidate Naveen Kumar Reddy won the Mahabubnagar Local Bodies constituency MLC bypoll, securing 763 votes and defeating his Congress rival Manne Jeevan Reddy by a margin of 108 votes.
The by-poll was necessitated by the resignation of the incumbent BRS MLC Kasireddy Narayana Reddy, who had joined the Congress and won the Kalwakurthy Assembly seat in the 2023 state elections.
The BRS victory in Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy’s home district of Mahabubnagar comes as a setback for the ruling Congress party.
Both parties had shifted their elected representatives, including MPTCs, ZPTCs, and municipal councillors, to camps in various locations like Goa, Kodaikanal, and Andhra Pradesh to prevent poaching by each other.
The polling saw a high voter turnout of 99.86%, with 1,437 out of 1,439 voters exercising their franchise.
Significant cross-voting in favor of the Congress was reported. The BRS had a strength of 1,039 (71%) elected representatives in the local bodies, while the Congress had 241 (16.67%) and the BJP 119 (8.23%).
However, about 700 BRS elected leaders subsequently joined the Congress, altering the electoral dynamics
