Pasunuri Dayakar, candidate of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) declared elected from Warangal (SC) Lok Sabha constituency. He won the election with a huge margin of 4,59,092 votes. All the candidates contested against him forfeited their deposit in the bypoll which was considered first major political test for the 17-month old TRS government. All political parties unanimously agreed that it was a referendum on KCR government.
TRS candidate Dayakar polled 6,15,403 votes while Congress nominee and former Union Minister Sarve Satyanarayana 1,56,311 only. P Devaiah of BJP-TDP combine ended up third with 130178 votes. The polling for the byelection was held on November 21.
The bypoll was necessitated by the resignation of Kadiyam Srihari after he was appointed Deputy Chief Minister by KCR. Srihari had won the seat with a margin of 3.92 lakh votes 2014 year’s election.
Congress tally has fallen drastically from what it was in 2014. In the previous general election, the Congress nominee Sircilla Rajaiah polled 2,69,065 votes. The byelection was a shock to the opposition party, which claimed to win the election with more than a lakh votes, as it polled just 50 per cent of 2014 votes.
Historic judgment : KCR
Thanking the voters of Warangal, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said people rejected the opposition parties’ criticism which targeted individuals. With this election, he said , the party’s and the government’s responsibility towards people had increased. The CM said the Warangal judgment was historical. ” We are laying the foundation for the new born state of Telangana. If you don’t understand our mission learn from others. We don’t commit any mistake. Opposition parties should eschew the intolerance towards the government and its programs,” he said. Stating that the verdict was endorsement of his policies,the CM hoped that same victory would be repeated in GHMC as well.
He said all the programs of reconstruction, such as secretariat, Osmania General Hospital etc would be revived. The TRS government would set right all the wrongs committed by Andhra chief ministers, he added.
“They(the opposition parties) criticized the Mission Kakaitiya as commission Kakatiya. They tried to scuttle all developmental projects. With this mandate we will march forward to eradicate poverty from the Telangana,” the CM said.
“A big thanks to Warangal. You’ve inspired us to work more and better”, tweeted K Taraka Rama Rao, the Minister for Panchayatraj, Rural Development and Information Technology and son of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
