TRS sweeps rural local body polls in Tgana

The ruling Telagana Rashtra Samithi Tuesday swept the rural local body polls in Telangana, winning a majority of the zilla parishad territorial constituency and mandal parishad territorial constituency seats.

The main opposition Congress stood second, while the BJP demonstrated its presence in the rural areas.

The performance of the Telugu Desam Party, CPI and CPI(M) continued to be poor.

Elections for 539 ZPTCs and 5,817 MPTCs were held in three phases last month.

Counting of votes was taken up Tuesday.

The TRS bagged 235 ZPTCs, and 1842 MPTCs till evening.

The Congress secured 38 ZPTCs and 719 MPTCs.

The BJP managed to win seven ZPTCs and 99 MPTCs, official sources said.

Upbeat over his partys 'historic' win, TRS working president K T Rama Rao said responsibility on the party grew following the massive victory in the rural local body polls.

"The verdict given by people in zilla parishad elections today is better than the unilateral verdict given by them in December (in Assembly elections), casting 50 per cent votes....," he told reporters Tuesday night.

The victory is so extraordinary that TRS is set to wrest the zilla parishad chairperson and vice-chairperson posts in the 32 districts in the state on its own, he said.

"I dont think such a unilateral verdict was ever witnessed in the history of local body polls in any state in the country after Independence, to the best of my knowledge.

This is a historic and massive and extraordinary victory," Rama Rao said.

The opposition parties could not even open their account in several districts, Rama Rao, son of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, said.

Recalling that various types of comments were made after the Lok Sabha polls, he said peoples verdict was final and that nothing is permanent in politics.

He was making an apparent reference to the comments of the BJP and Congress after Lok Sabha polls that TRS had lost its popularity and they would emerge as the people's choice.

Amid expectations that the TRS would win at least 13-14 of the total 17 Lok Sabha seats, the party won nine.

The BJP made surprising gains winning four Lok Sabha constituencies, while the Congress secured three.

Reacting to the trends and outcome of ZPTC and MPTC elections, the Congress said it has proved its existence and strength across Telangana.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy said the results could not be considered as a sweep by ruling TRS as the Congress has put up a tough fight in all seats.

"Congress has won significant number of seats and lost many other seats with small margins despite the fact that TRS has openly misused the official machinery, money power and liquor," he said.

The Election Commission completely ignored their complaints and TRS leaders were allowed to violate the Model Code of Conduct, the congress leader alleged.

"The ruling party has used intimidation as a tool to get the support of voters in rural areas," he said.

The indirect elections to the posts of ZP Chaipersons and vice-chairpersons would be held on June 8.