Madhavaneni Raghunandan won the Medak Parliamentary seat after losing the contest for Dubbak Assembly seat. | Photo Credit: MOHD ARIF
Luck smiled on these Parliament winners from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) within five months after tasting humiliating defeats in the Assembly polls in December last.
At the same time, candidates from the Congress and Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) faced an embarrassing defeat in both Assembly and Parliament elections within a gap of a few months. The BJP leaders have been lucky in their second attempt with the victory on a bigger stage eclipsing the bitterness of the Assembly defeat.
Five of the eight BJP MPs elected from Telangana contested in the Assembly elections and they include Eatala Rajender, Bandi Sanjay, Dharmapuri Aravind and M. Raghunandan Rao. They lost at the hands of BRS candidates but defeated the same BRS with wide margins. Eatala contested from two places, including the Gajwel seat where he took on then Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao apart from his traditional Huzurabad seat.
Mr. Raghunandan, who shot into the limelight in the Dubbak bypoll defeating the BRS when it was at its peak, lost from Dubbak with a huge margin to Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, then Medak MP. Interestingly, Mr. Raghunandan has now won from the Medak Parliament seat. In a way, they both swapped their seats.
The case of Bandi Sanjay and Arvind Dharmapuri is peculiar as they lost in the Assembly elections despite being the sitting MPs in their strongholds. Bandi Sanjay contested from Karimnagar Assembly and lost narrowly to BRS candidate and then minister Gangula Kamalakar. He has taken a sweet revenge now retaining the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat. Mr. Aravind Dharmapur lost from Korutla Assembly constituency, which is part of his Nizamabad Parliament but lost. However, he was able to retain the Nizamabad Parliament with a high margin.
Several candidates from the Congress and the BRS lost for the second time; some were sitting MLAs. Senior Congress leader and sitting MLC T. Jeevan Reddy contested from Jagityal in the Assembly and from Nizamabad Parliament but lost both the times.
Aroori Ramesh, a two-time MLA from Wardhannapet lost from his constituency in 2023 Assembly elections and jumped ship to join the BJP to seek the Warangal Parliament ticket. But he tasted defeat at the hands of first-timer Kadiyam Kavya of the Congress.
Koppula Eashwar, who was a minister in the BRS government, lost in the Assembly and from Peddapalli Parliament seat now. R.S. Praveen Kumar, who contested the Assembly seat on the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket and lost badly in Sirpur Kagaznagar. The then BSP State chief joined the BRS ahead of the Parliament elections, which surprised many given his hard anti-KCR stand, and figured at third place in Nagarkurnool constituency in the Parliament elections behind Congress and the BJP.
Bajireddy Goverdhan, senior BRS leader lost in the Assembly and from Nizamabad Parliament. Neelam Madhu, a BRS leader and aspirant of Patancheru Assembly constituency contested as the BSP candidate after BRS denied him the ticket and lost. Just before the Parliament elections he joined the Congress to bag the Medak Parliament seat but lost narrowly to the BJP. Saidi Reddy, a sitting BRS MLA from Huzurnagar lost in 2023 from the same place and joined the BJP to secure the Nalgonda Parliament ticket. He lost by a margin of 5.59 lakh votes, highest in Telangana, to the Congress candidate.
Another two interesting cases are sitting MLAs in the present Assembly who faced defeat in the Parliament elections. Danam Nagender, who was elected on BRS ticket from Khairatabad, jumped to Congress to take on Union Minister Kishan Reddy in the Secunderabad Parliament seat. He stood second behind Mr. Reddy. The sitting BRS MLA from Secunderabad T Padma Rao contested as BRS candidate for Secunderabad Parliament but lost his deposit.
