In a major setback to the Congress, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi in Telangana wins the October 21 bypoll to Huzurnagar Assembly constituency. TRS nominee S Saidi Reddy won the election with bumper majority of over 42,000 votes over his Congress rival N Padmavati Reddy. The TRS candidate has consistently maintained his lead, since the counting began.
The result of the by-election comes as a surprise given that both sides were expecting a neck-to-neck contest. The result is expected to set the political mood for the foreseeable future, especially for the TRS, which had taken a beating in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls after it won only 9 out of the 17 parliamentary seats.
The ongoing indefinite bus strike by the TSRTC was also expected to impact the bye-election results. But, it seems, there was no impact of the strike. In fact, yesterday, KCR had announced that the state government is ready to conduct the municipal elections, which have been due from the last few months.
The result of the Huzurnagar bypoll will put the TRS back in the driver’s seat, especially since the assembly segment has traditionally been a Congress stronghold from decades.