This Huzurabad by-poll will be remembered for long for many reasons.
If the unusual protest on roads by some voters against alleged distribution of ₹6,000 per vote raised eyebrows, seizure of ₹3.81 crore by police in this single Assembly constituency comprising five mandals within 31 days is startling.
Though by-elections were held earlier in Telangana since its formation in 2014, this is the first by-poll necessitated by resignation of a sitting MLA of the ruling party.
The by-poll became even more curious since TRS MLA Eatala Rajender, who was a close associate of the party supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, challenged the latter’s leadership, having been dropped from the Council of Ministers. With Mr. Rajender joining BJP which had been striving to get a stronghold in Telangana and come to power, the battle attracted wide attention.
Congress leader and Malkajgiri MP A. Revanth Reddy’s elevation as Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president rekindled hopes in its cadre to regain past glory. Undeterred by their official nominee in 2018 Assembly polls switching loyalty to TRS, they hoped to rejuvenate the party in Huzurabad, their stronghold for the past several years.
BJP found an opportunity to further strengthen its ground in Telangana by winning this by-poll. Earlier, it won Dubbak by-poll but lost Nagarjunasgar after that.
There was a gap of more than three months between Mr. Rajender’s resignation and issuance of by-election notification.
Without wasting a minute, he started touring nook and corner of the constituency which he knew as the palm of his hand. Once the notification was issued nearly a month ago, the real by-poll battle started.
There was no dearth of allegations and criticism of opponents by main political parties and their candidates. Interestingly, neither KCR nor his son K. Taraka Rama Rao who is a member of his Cabinet took part in the campaign. However, KCR’s nephew and Cabinet colleague T. Harish Rao assisted by some other Ministers, MLAs and MLCs took over the responsibility of securing his party nominee Gellu Srinivas Yadav’s victory.
With a record of over 86% poll percentage reported, the polling ended by 7 p.m. sending party leaders to analyse how many votes they were likely to get. Speculation started about the likely winner with different analysts and groups predicting results backed by their own versions.
The fate of the candidates is sealed in EVMs. All have to wait till Tuesday when the counting begins in SRR government degree college in Karimnagar city.
