TRS retains Medak Lok Sabha seat (Third Lead)

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Tuesday retained the Medak Lok Sabha seat in Telangana, although with a lesser majority compared to the general elections.

TRS candidate K. Prabhakar Reddy defeated his nearest rival V. Sunitha Lakshma Reddy of the Congress by 361,286 votes, said Bhanwarlal, chief electoral officer for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Jagga Reddy of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Telugu Desam Party combine finished third.

Prabhakar Reddy polled 571,810 votes, while Sunitha got 210,524 and Jagga Reddy got 186,343 votes.

About 67 percent of the 15.43 lakh voters had cast their votes in the bypoll held Sep 13 in the constituency, which was once represented by late prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The byelection was necessitated following the resignation of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who had won in the general elections by 3.97 lakh votes. Sharavan Kumar of the Congress had finished second.

Medak is the native district of Chandrasekhar Rao, who was elected both from the Medak Lok Sabha and the Gajwel assembly seats. He retained the assembly seat as the TRS stormed to power in the newly-created state.

The TRS had bagged 11 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana.

Both the polling percentage and the TRS's victory margin in Medak came down in the byelection.

The votes polled by the Congress also came down by about 50,000, while there was no major change in the BJP's vote share though it fielded Jagga Reddy, a bitter critic of the chief minister who was expected to give a tough fight.

The BJP had announced his candidature even before he formally quit the Congress.

Celebrations broke out in the TRS camp after the victory.

Chandrasekhar Rao, who is also the TRS president, said people once again reposed their faith in the TRS despite false propaganda by the opposition parties.

He said the BJP received a huge setback for joining hands with the TDP.

"The result has once again proved that the TDP has no future in Telangana," he said.