There was a sense of jubilation in the Telangana Bhavan here since Friday morning with party workers lighting crackers, distributing sweets among themsleves as the positive news of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi bypoll results came trickling in.
The counting of votes for the July 27 byelections began at 8 a.m on Friday. Soon, the message became evident that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi was leading with thumping margins over rivals Congress and Telugu Desam in all the 11 constituencies where it entered the fray. TRS did not field a nominee for the Nizamabad-urban seat where it supported a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate against State Congress president D Srinivas.
The winning streak was led by TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao while the Congress and Telugu Desam parties failed to make even a single-digit score in the TRS bastion. The byelection verdict sent a clear message that the demand for a separate state for the region is a reality.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which has already won two seats, is leading in the nine other constituencies, while the BJP is ahead in one seat.
TRS leader T Harish Rao established a record in the state's electoral history by retaining his Siddipet Assembly seat by a margin of 95,858 votes. The record broke the record of late YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who had been elected from Pulivendula (Kadapa district) last year with a margin of 68,681 votes. Harish Rao came second in last year's elections by a margin of 64,677 votes.