Congress bags Kalwakurthy assembly seat in Telangana

The Congress party has bagged an assembly seat in Telangana after re-polling was held Monday in a polling centre.

In a nail biting finish, Congress candidate Vamshi Chander Reddy defeated T. Achary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by 79 votes in Kalwakurthy assembly constituency in Mahabubnagar district.

With this, the Congress has won 21 seats in the 119-member assembly in Telangana and secured the status of principal opposition party.

The Election Commission had ordered re-poll in a booth as the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) had not recorded the polling.

When the counting was stopped Friday, the Congress candidate was leading by 157 votes. After the re-poll was ordered, both the Congress and the BJP-TDP combine made all out efforts to woo the voters.

As many as 833 out of 867 voters in polling centre number 119 in Jupally village cast their votes. The voting percentage was 96.07 percent against 73 percent recorded April 30.

In the re-poll, the Congress candidate secured 350 votes while the BJP polled 428 votes.

There were high stakes for both the Congress and the BJP-TDP alliance. As the alliance had also bagged 20 seats, it was hoping to become the principle opposition by a victory in Kalwakurthy.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which secured a majority by winning 63 seats, finished third in the constituency.