The electoral fortunes of the political parties in the Warangal Lok Sabha by-election are now sealed in the EVMs, with the polling coming to an end at 5 pm today. Even though as many as twenty three candidates are in the fray,the main contest seems to be between the ruling TRS and the Opposition Congress.
According to district collector and returning officer about 68.59 per cent voters exercised their franchise in today’s polling. Segment wise Parkal Assembly constituency recorded highest of polling with 76.69 per cent while Palakurthy stood close second with 76.40 pc. Station Ghanpur recorded 75.55 per cent of polling. Among other segments, Bhupalpalli reported 70.10 per cent, Wardhannapet 71.16 per cent , Warangal East 62.21 per cent. Warangal West reported lowest polling 48.03 per cent.
The byelection, which saw fierce campaign by all political parties, was necessitated by the resignation of Kadiam Srihari, who had been inducted as Deputy Chief Minister in KCR Government following the sacking of T Rajaiah.
All parties, agreed that the election was a referendum on the performance of the TRS Government led by K Chandrasekhar Rao. While TRS had been silent about the outcome of the election, Congress had launched an aggressive campaign stating that it was going to win the election with more than a lakh votes. The party roped in senior AICC leaders such a former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar and Sachin Pilot and special attraction was the presence of former union minister S Jaipal Reddy in the campaign. TRS campaign had wound up the campaign by a massive public meeting at Warangal in which chief minister KCR defended the TRS policies. He dismissed the contest as nominal and said victory for TRS was a foregone conclusion. While Jagan campaigned for YSRC, BJP-TDP combine could not get AP CM Chandrababu Naidu campaigned for the BJP’s candidate Dr Devaiah.
The defeat or victory has the potential to change the course of Telangana politics. A defeat of TRS would be set back for KCR and his programs, a win would mean he would aggressively pursue his policies. He would revive all the programs such as cheap liquor, shifting of secretariat, Osmania General Hospital etc which had been put on back burner due to public resentment.
