hyderabad
The plans of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to be the first party in south India to score a hat-trick victory in Assembly elections, except the Congress till the emergence of regional parties, were cut short by the electorate and a resurgent Congress in Telangana on Sunday.
The party managed to win only 39 seats in the 119-member Assembly, down from 88 it won in 2018, with the constituencies in the Greater Hyderabad and its surroundings and erstwhile Medak and Karimnagar districts helping it reach the respectable mark. It was a difference of about 2% vote share between the party and the victorious Congress, which won 64 seats.
The defeat of BRS (earlier Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which was floated in 2001 with the single-point agenda of achieving statehood to Telangana) has certainly put a stop to its ambitions of nationwide expansion starting with Maharashtra, where it held several public meetings this year and admitted leaders from other parties by showcasing its welfare and development schemes in Telangana.
Not only six Ministers lost the election this time but the biggest shocker is the defeat of party president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao in Kamareddy, which he contested as the second constituency in addition to Gajwel. The party has started preparations for this election by announcing its candidates as early as in August, when the Election Commission had not even announced the schedule.
The defeat of Ministers S. Niranjan Reddy, K. Eshwar, V. Srinivas Goud, P. Ajay Kumar, E. Dayakar Rao and A. Indrakaran Reddy is being seen as the impact of anti-incumbency factor in rural areas for various reasons. “But for the party’s show in the GHMC and its surrounding areas, the results would have been much worse,” a government functionary close to the party leadership said.
Sources in the party stated that internal surveys commissioned by the leadership had repeatedly revealed that the anti-incumbency factor was very high against 30-35 MLAs, including a few Ministers. Even the working president of the party K.T. Rama Rao is learnt to have taken up the issue of need to change candidates in at least 30 constituencies with the party president K.Chandrasekhar Rao, but in vain.
The party leadership was apparently in a dilemma over whether change of over one-third of candidates would have a negative impact on the party’s prospects from the word go or if the announcement of candidates leading to their crossover to rival parties would mean that the BRS is not confident of winning election this time.
