Hyderabad: Congress candidate Naveen Yadav registered a powerful victory within the Jubilee Hills Meeting bypoll in Telangana, defeating his nearest rival and Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s Maganti Sunitha Gopinath by a margin of practically 25,000 votes.

Celebrations started in Hyderabad early as Naveen’s lead reached round 20,000 votes after eight rounds of counting. His lead stood at 24,729 when all 10 rounds of counting have been accomplished round 2.30 pm, based on the Election Fee web site.

Naveen contested Jubilee Hills twice earlier than, in 2014 as an AIMIM candidate and in 2018 as an Unbiased.

The bypoll, performed on 11 November, was necessitated by the dying of sitting BRS Member of the Legislative Meeting (MLA) Maganti Gopinath in June. It’s the second such bypoll in Telangana for the reason that Revanth Reddy-led Telangana Congress got here to energy in November 2023.

In June 2024, the Secunderabad Cantonment bypoll was held after BRS MLA Lasya Nanditha died in a automotive crash in February, three months after profitable her first election.

Congress candidate Sri Ganesh received the June byelection, defeating BJP’s Vamsha Tilak and BRS nominee Lasya Niveditha, Nanditha’s sister.

In Hyderabad, the place the BRS received the overwhelming majority of meeting seats regardless of an total drubbing and dropping energy after two phrases; the Congress’s victory within the Cantonment and now Jubilee Hills is being seen as Revanth Reddy gaining appreciable maintain over the town.

A consequent electoral victory, forward of the essential native physique polls and Larger Hyderabad Municipal Company (GHMC) elections, analysts say, will strengthen Revanth’s place within the celebration’s management eyes in Delhi.

The Jubilee Hills bypoll is prestigious for the BRS, whose Gopinath received it 3 times, first as a Telugu Desam Occasion (TDP) MLA in 2014 and once more for the then Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

The BRS fielded Maganti’s widow, Sunitha, and campaigned extensively, accusing CM Revanth of misgovernance and “unkept ballot guarantees just like the six welfare ensures”. BRS Working President Okay.T. Rama Rao (KTR) dared Revanth to hunt votes based mostly on his practically two-year rule, treating it as a referendum.

The previous minister urged voters to “ship a decisive verdict” by electing the BRS so as “to power the Congress to implement its ensures,” and contrasted the BRS’s decade of governance to “two years of destruction of Telangana underneath the Congress”.

KTR charged that Revanth Reddy’s tenure “reversed the progress, hitting the true property, transport and small trades whereas driving away funding” versus the knowledge expertise sector, building of the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences and Analysis, 42 flyovers and underpasses, and so forth, carried out through the BRS’ decade in energy.

The previous state municipal and concrete growth minister additionally lambasted the Congress “for unleashing the Hyderabad Catastrophe Administration and Asset Safety Company (HYDRAA) on the poor.”

Revanth Reddy, however, left no stone unturned for his profitable feat in Jubilee Hills.

For the primary time, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is supporting a Congress nominee in an election since strolling out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2012.

The AIMIM sat out of the elections within the phase with over one lakh Muslim votes, out of the whole of about 4 lakh, and prolonged tacit help to the Congress candidate.

This was whilst Hyderabad Member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi fielded celebration candidates in Bihar, a transfer seen as damaging the RJD-Congress-compromised Mahagathbandhan alliance’s prospects, the state was getting ready for its meeting polls within the north Indian state.

Days earlier than the polls, Revanth, with the excessive command’s approval, made former cricketer and MP Mohammed Azharuddin a minister in his cupboard that beforehand lacked a Muslim face.

With Azharuddin, Revanth couldn’t solely attraction to the dominant Muslim votes in Jubilee Hills, but in addition put a cease to the prevalent criticism that the Congress lacked a Muslim face in a state the place the neighborhood constitutes about 13 per cent.

Azharuddin was given the cost of the Public Enterprises & Minority Welfare departments.

Revanth addressed just a few rallies within the constituency in search of votes from all of the sections, whereas additionally deploying his a number of ministers for campaigning within the high-stakes bypoll.

Turning assured because the ballot date neared, CM Revanth hit again at KTR, calling upon the Jubilee Hills voters to gauge the bypoll from the lens of growth and governance of the previous 20 years, “what the Congress achieved between 2004 and 2014 and once more since 2023, in opposition to the ‘misplaced decade underneath the BRS.”

The BJP needed to be content material with 11,928 votes thus far, in comparison with its 25,866 votes within the 2023 meeting elections right here.

“We all know our power, place right here within the constituency. We needed to be within the contest and marketing campaign for votes, to avoid wasting face,” a senior celebration chief advised ThePrint.

(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)

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