Hyderabad: The ruling TRS party suffered a big jolt in the MLC graduate election for Mahabubnagar-Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad constituency. BJP candidate N Ramachander Rao trounced TRS contestant G Deviprasad with a margin of 13,318 votes. Meanwhile, invalid and NOTA (none of the above) accounted 8,433 and 521 votes respectively.

Counting of ballots was done in four rounds at Victory Playground in Esamia Bazaar. Ramachander Rao shot into lead over his rival from round one of the counting which began only in the evening. He got 13,205 votes while G Deviprasad polled 10, 314 votes, a lead of 2,891 votes. He stretched his lead in the next rounds. In rounds two and three, the BJP candidate got 13,474 and 13,640 votes while Deviprasad got 10,116 and 10,094 votes respectively.

Ramchandra Rao maintained the lead of over 3,000 votes in all four rounds of counting. It was a definite victory for the BJP candidate as he secured 52.42 per cent of 102,785 valid votes while the TRS candidate got 39.46 per cent votes. Elated by the result, Ramachander Rao thanked graduate voters of three districts for reposing faith in saffron party.  

The ruling TRS party tried every means even misusing official machinery but it proved futile in the end, he alleged. He attributed this result to TRS’s failure in fulfilling its promise on providing government jobs. Unemployed youth taught a lesson to the government by casting votes in favour of BJP, which also played a crucial part in realisation of statehood to Telangana, he said. Meanwhile, accepting defeat Deviprasad accused all political parties of colluding to defeat TRS in the election.

Also, delay in finalizing party candidate for the election as well as Ramachander’s groundwork in reaching out to voters helped the BJP, he felt. Deviprasad felt that the Congress had connived with the TTDP and BJP in defeating him. The Congress had polled only 749 votes.

In Warangal, Khammam and Nalgonda MLC elections, the TRS candidate P Rajeshwar Reddy was leading by about 3,900 votes over his nearest rival E Ramamohan Rao of BJP. Rao had got 2,800 votes. There are about 16 rounds to be counted and the result is likely to be announced on Thursday morning.