Telangana, Andhra bypolls: Rajender wins in Huzurabad, YSRC retains Badvel

The seat fell vacant after Rajender, a former health minister, resigned from the ruling TRS and joined the BJP.

The twin Telugu states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh brought mixed results for the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and YSR Congress Party (YSRC), respectively, in the bypolls held on October 30.

Eatala Rajender with Union home minister Amit Shah(ANI)

While Eatala Rajender, a former minister in Telangana, won as a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the Huzurabad seat, the YSRC’s Dasari Sudha defeated BJP's Panathala Suresh by a margin of 90,533 votes in the Badvel seat.

In Huzurabad, Rajender won the election by a margin of 23,855 votes against Gellu Srinivas Yadav of the TRS.

The seat fell vacant after Rajender, a former health minister, resigned from the ruling TRS and joined the BJP. Rajender tendered his resignation earlier in June after he was sacked from the state council of ministers over allegations of land encroachment.

“Despite the fact that the ruling TRS spent hundreds of crores of rupees in this election, people of Huzurabad voted for BJP candidate Etela Rajender. I thank the people of Huzurabad for rejecting money power and voting for BJP,” Union minister G Kishen Reddy was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

“People of Telangana are confident about the BJP and they believe this is the only effective and dynamic party that can counter the misrule of the TRS government,” Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, BJP's national co-incharge for Tamil Nadu, was quoted as saying by PTI. Reddy said the BJP was exposing the TRS-led government for a long time.

Meanwhile, in Andhra, the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSRC retained the Badvel seat, which is reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. YSRC's Dasari Sudha polled 1,12,211 votes, while Suresh secured only 21,678 votes. In 2019, Venkata Subbiah, Sudha’s husband, had won the seat by 44,734 votes from the Badvel seat.

In a tweet, Reddy thanked the voters of Badvel constituency and complimented Sudha and party workers for the victory.