Hyderabad: Candidates backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have won two of three MLC constituency polls in Congress-ruled Telangana, jolting Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and boosting the BJP’s prospects ahead of key local elections this year. The third seat went to a teachers’ body.
The double victory came as a major shot in the arm for the BJP ahead of the local body polls, including panchayat elections and the crucial Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections due at the end of 2025.
The BJP’s Ch Anji Reddy emerged the victor Wednesday night in the Karimnagar-Nizamabad-Medak-Adilabad graduates’ constituency after a nail-biting three-day counting process under the preferential system of ballot papers.
The result was a significant blow for Congress, which had held the seat through senior leader Jeevan Reddy before fielding Narender Reddy this time. The Congress candidate left the counting centre in tears after losing by around 5,000 votes.
In the results announced Monday night, BJP-supported candidate Malka Komaraiah took the Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad-Karimnagar Teachers’ constituency while the Progressive Recognised Teachers Union-supported candidate Sripal Reddy won the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda Teachers’ constituency.
The results strengthen the BJP’s grip on northern Telangana, where it has steadily gained ground since 2019. Seven of its eight assembly seats fall within the Karimnagar-Nizamabad-Medak-Adilabad graduates’ constituency.
The BJP also holds all four Lok Sabha seats in the politically important region after the party harvested its highest-ever crop of eight seats from Telangana in the 2024 general elections. Karimnagar-Nizamabad-Adilabad Lok Sabha constituents had voted for the BJP in 2019, too.
The latest MLC results come as the BJP seeks to position itself as the leading opposition force in Telangana after losing ground to the Congress in the 2023 assembly elections.
BJP state chief Kishan Reddy termed the party’s success in two out of three seats as proof of its strength and popularity in the state.
“The triumph shows we have emerged as the alternative (to the Congress) in Telangana,” Reddy, also a union minister, said in a statement.
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‘MLC Champions Trophy’
Telangana is one of the few states in the country with two legislative chambers: an Assembly and a Legislative Council, the equivalent of the Rajya Sabha at the Centre.
The Members of the Legislative Council (MLCs) are elected by the MLAs, graduates, teachers and local authorities separately. Some are nominated by the governor on the government’s advice. The MLCs have a six-year term.
Elections were held for one graduate and two teachers’ seats on 27 February before the respective MLCs’ tenures were to end in March last week.
While the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), in power for a decade till 2023, sat out the polls, the Congress was in the fray in the graduates’ constituency.
Though Revanth Reddy as well as other ministers and party leaders campaigned extensively in the segment, the graduates preferred the BJP nominee Ch Anji Reddy.
Party leaders said Union ministers Bandi Sanjay and Kishan Reddy actively campaigned for the teachers and graduates’ polls.
Firebrand Karimnagar MP Bandi displayed his usual aggression in electioneering. At one point, the MoS Home Affairs, while noting that India handed a humiliating defeat to Pakistan in the Champions Trophy match, appealed to voters to support the BJP to similarly defeat the Congress in the “political match”.
“We (BJP) are the Indian team; they (Congress) are the Pakistan team. Voters must decide now—vote for us for India’s victory or vote for them if Pakistan is to win,” the BJP national general secretary reportedly said in Karimnagar.
Bandi’s comparison of the Telangana MLC poll contest with an India-Pakistan cricket match drew an angry reaction from the Congress.
Earlier, during an interaction with graduates at Mancherial town, Bandi accused the Congress government of Muslim appeasement as it allowed Muslim government employees to leave the offices early during the month of Ramzan.
On Wednesday, celebrating the graduates’ seat victory in Karimnagar, Bandi said the BJP had won the ‘MLC Champions Trophy,’ calling it the Hindu community’s Ramzan gift to the Congress.
“We are sounding the bugle. It will be the BJP’s victory in any poll now onwards in Telangana. I dare the Congress to go for local body polls immediately,” Bandi told reporters.
Two and a half years ago, the BJP was riding a similar wave, projecting itself as the alternative to K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s BRS. The momentum set in after the party won the November 2020 Dubbaka and November 2021 Huzurabad by-polls and was reinforced by its spectacular performance in the December 2020 GHMC polls, where the party increased its tally from four to 48 wards.
However, the party lost steam after the November 2022 Munugodu by-poll, which the BRS managed to win, and the subsequent removal of Bandi as the BJP state chief in the critical run-up to the 2023 assembly elections. Several leaders, like M. Vijaya Shanti and Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, exited and joined the Congress.
As the Telangana BJP was seen as rapidly conceding the opposition space to the Congress, the latter rallied to victory in the polls under Revanth Reddy’s leadership.
However, following the BRS defeat, the BJP managed to regain its footing and won eight out of 17 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general polls, its highest-ever from Telangana.
Party leaders say the latest MLC election win will energise the party as it prepares to take on the Congress in upcoming polls.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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