Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) delivered a crushing blow to opposition parties by retaining the Warangal (SC) Lok Sabha seat with a record majority of more than 459,000 votes.
Pasunuri Dayakar of TRS, who made his electoral debut, bettered the party’s 2014 margin of victory, which was 395,000 votes achieved by veteran Kadiyam Srihari.
Dayakar left his opponents — Congress candidate Sarve Satyanarayana and Bharatiya Janata Party-Telugu Desam Party (BJP-TDP) candidate P. Devaiah — panting at second and third position respectively. Both rivals forfeited their deposits.
Celebrations erupted at TRS headquarters, called Telangana Bhavan, in Hyderabad as the trends became clear, and Dayakar’s bid increased the margin of victory with each round. TRS workers also came out on the streets in Warangal and other districts of Telangana bursting crackers and shouting slogans to celebrate the victory.
While TRS secured 614,503 votes, Congress polled 156,315 and BJP came third with 130,178 votes.
“The support extended by the people of Warangal is highly inspiring and motivating”, said TRS President and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), profusely thanking voters. KCR described the Warangal victory as unprecedented.
He told jubilant party workers that they have still lot of work to do to achieve the goal of a “golden Telangana”. “A lot of injustices done by the Andhra rulers over the decades were yet to be undone”, he added. KCR said that the Telangana movement was to secure the rights of Telangana in river waters and the other resources. “Our goal is to make Telangana completely drought-free through efficient utilisation of water”, he said.
Dayakar’s victory margin of 459,092 is being hailed as the seventh-biggest margin in the electoral history of the country.
The BJP candidate Devaiah, a non-resident Indian doctor, said if the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had campaigned for him and declared that he would be made a Union Minister, the result would have been different.
Satyanarayana of Congress said that he bows his head before the people’s verdict.
