With BJP winning 4 Lok Sabha seats in the Telugu state and winning more than 300 on its own at the centre, KCR’s hopes of playing a larger national role have ended.
With a impressive victory in 4 seats, the BJP has made huge inroads in Telangana.The party has won from Adilabad, Karimnagar, Secunderabad, and Nizamabad. Incidentally, KCR’s daughter and sitting MP K Kavitha has lost from Nizamabad to BJP’s Arvind Dharmapuri.
The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) was able to win from 9 seats with its alliance partner AIMIM winning 1 seat. The TRS, which secured a landslide win with 88 seats in the Assembly polls held in December 2018, was confident of securing 16 seats in the general elections. The Congress which held many rallies of Rahul Gandhi in the state was confident of winning in as many as 10 seats. The Congress has won from 3 seats.
With BJP winning 303 on its own and NDA coming up with 350+ seats, KCR’s hopes of playing a larger role in the third front have been dashed. He had hoped to play a role in national politics by passing on the reins of the state to his son. Though he did not become part of the Mahaghatbandhan, he was hoping for a Third Front. But the Modi wave seems to have swept away his wishes and many seats for TRS.
Observers say that KCR’s autocratic style of functioning, his over indulgence of the minorities, lagging developmental projects have already given rise to anti-incumbency in less than six months after the Assembly polls.All the seats where TRS candidates lost were perceived to be party strongholds, especially the seats from where BJP has won.
The BJP which was considered a marginal player has won the second highest number of seats. Most analysts had predicted only 1 to 2 seats for BJP. It seems that the consolidation of Hindu votes has played a major role in the victory in the 4 seats. Even in Hyderabad, which is considered the turf of the Owaisi family,the main challenger was from the BJP and not the Congress as it was all these years. The misdeeds of the AIMIM seems to have woken up the Hindu voters. As a matter of fact, G Kishan Reddy from Secunderabad, Bandi Sanjay Kumar from Karimnagar, Soyam Bapu Rao from Adilabad and D Arvind from Nizamabad, have all won with a margins of over 50,000 votes in the 4 seats for the BJP.
The consolidation of Hindu votes in favor of the BJP will only help the party to grow further in the state. All the 4 seats from where the BJP has won, has a sizeable Muslim population. For the BJP which had a forgettable assembly polls last year, this victory has come as a fillip to its efforts to reach out to the voters of the state.
