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Hyderabad: After the withdrawal of nominations closed at 3 pm on Tuesday, February 3, 12,993 candidates remain in the fray for 2,996 wards across Telangana, with 6,701 candidates withdrawing from the contest ahead of the February 11 municipal elections, in which 52.43 lakh voters are eligible to cast their ballots.
Counting of votes will be taken up on February 13.
The elections will be held in seven municipal corporations and 116 municipalities, even as the nomination and withdrawal phase was marked by internal party infighting, allegations of forced withdrawals, and distress among aspirants in multiple districts.
In Jagtial district, factionalism within the Congress has intensified over the allotment of party tickets, with senior leader and former minister T Jeevan Reddy openly expressing anger at the party leadership for favouring the group led by his rival M Sanjay Kumar.
Reddy’s camp was allotted 20 tickets, while candidates aligned with Kumar secured 30 tickets, triggering discontent among party cadre.
A large number of Congress workers gathered at Reddy’s residence on Tuesday, where he held a meeting with supporters to decide the future course of action.
Reddy is locked in a bitter rivalry with Kumar, one of the 10 MLAs of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) who defected to the Congress in 2024. The rivalry dates back to the 2023 Assembly elections, in which Reddy was defeated by Kumar in the Jagtial constituency.
Reddy has since openly opposed the party leadership’s decision to induct Kumar.
On January 21, Reddy walked out of a meeting at the party’s state headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan, objecting to Kumar’s presence and questioning how a member of the Opposition was allowed to attend an internal party meeting.
The factional feud spilt into the ticket allocation process for elections to Jagtial and Raikal municipalities, where aspirants from both camps filed nominations. However, the party issued B-forms largely to candidates aligned with Kumar, deepening the rift.
In Ramagundam of Peddapalli district, a Bharatiya Janata Party worker has alleged she was forced to withdraw her candidature by the police and Congress leaders.
On Tuesday, Reema Biswa, who was contesting from Ward No. 1 on a BJP ticket, lodged a complaint with the Ramagundam Police Commissioner, accusing the Congress candidate Madipalli Vijaya and the police of harassment. She alleged that police personnel, acting on Vijaya’s instructions, forcibly took her and her family in an autorickshaw and threatened to kill them if she did not withdraw her nomination.
While Vijaya is contesting on a Congress ticket, the BRS has fielded Shweta as its candidate from the ward.
In another incident in Jagtial, a Congress woman worker told the media on Tuesday that she was deeply distressed after being denied a ticket to contest the local body polls. Claiming she had worked for the party for several years and was promised a ticket from Ward No. 24, she alleged that her candidature was rejected at the last moment.
Breaking down before reporters, she said she would end her life if she was not given a ticket. She later lodged a complaint with the Jagtial District Congress Party Women’s President Vijayalakshmi.
This post was last modified on February 4, 2026 9:03 am