3 turncoats win in Telangana

It was not a bad strike rate for turncoats in Telangana as three of the five who switched parties shortly before the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls were able to secure victories.

BJP's Soyam Bapu Rao who contested from Adilabad won by a margin of more than 58,000 votes over his TRS rival Godam Nagesh.

Bapu Rao was with the Congress before the polls.

The victory of Bapu Rao, a leader of the Adivasi movement aimed at removing Lambadas from the list of Scheduled Tribes, came as a surprise even for some BJP leaders.

Madhucon Group promoter Nama Nageswara Rao who contested unsuccessfully as a Telugu Desam Party candidate in the Assembly polls in December, won on a TRS ticket this time from Khammam.

He defeated former Union Minister Renuka Chowdary of the Congress by over 1.68 lakh votes.

Nageswara Rao was TDP's Lok Sabha floor leader between 2009 and 2014.

Venkatesh Netha Borlakunta who unsuccessfully contested on a Congress ticket in the last Assembly polls won the Peddapalle Parliamentary seat by 95,180 votes over Congress rival Agam Chandrasekhar.

Former minister D K Aruna who unsuccessfully contested as a Congress candidate from Gadwal Assembly constituency in December joined the BJP later and threw her hat in the ring in Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha seat.

She was defeated by her TRS rival by nearly 78,000 votes.

Konda Vishweshwar Reddy who won on a TRS ticket in 2014 from Chevella and switched loyalties to the Congress, contested in the same segment for Lok Sabha.

He lost to TRS candidate G Ranjith Reddy by 14,317 votes.