Congress, BJP share Telangana honours, BRS out of Lok Sabha

Bad news continued to roll in for the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana barely five months after the shock loss in the Assembly elections as the party drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls even as the BJP seemingly occupied its space in the state’s political landscape.

The honours for the state’s 17 Lok Sabha seats were shared between the Congress and BJP, which won eight seats each while the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM retained its bastion of Hyderabad.

The BJP, which won four seats (Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Secunderabad) in 2019 not only retained them but doubled its tally by adding Malkajgiri, Chevella, Medak and Mahabubnagar.

Four BJP leaders who lost last year’s Assembly polls won their respective Lok Sabha seats. Sitting Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay, who unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls from the Karimnagar City seat, retained his seat with a over 2 lakh margin while Dharmapuri Aravind, who lost the Korutla Assembly polls, retained the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat. Former BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao, who lost the Assembly polls from Dubbak, won the Medak Lok Sabha seat, considered to be a BRS bastion.

Etala Rajender, who lost the Assembly polls from Huzurabad and Gajwel, won by 3.91 lakh votes from Malkajgiri, a seat which was vacated by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy upon his election as MLA. He defeated his nearest rival Patnam Sunitha Reddy of the Congress.

Meanwhile, BRS turncoat Godam Nagesh retained the Adilabad seat for the BJP, which had replaced sitting MP Soyam Bapu Rao. Similarly, another former BRS leader K Vishveshwar Reddy, who is one of the richest candidates in India and contested on a BJP ticket, won the Chevella seat beating sitting MP G Ranjit Reddy.

A neck and neck contest was