Hyderabad: The sheer scale of the TRS’ victory in Warangal left the Opposition dumbstruck, with some leaders weakly trying to find excuses, while others saying that they would have to analyse the situation.
“We will have to analyse the result. We never expected to fare so badly,” said Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council Shabbir Ali, reacting to Congress candidate Sarve Satyanarayana forfeiting his deposit. Mr Satyanarayana himself had predicted he would win by a five-lakh margin.
The result did point to one thing. The Congress leadership had again failed in its efforts to get electoral benefit by telling people that it was the party that had granted statehood to Telangana, and not the TRS.
The pathetic performance by a national party like the Congress has forced it to reassess the political situation in the state.
Senior party MP from Nalgonda Gutta Sukhender Reddy even suggested at a media interaction that the Congress should start looking at alliances parties like the Telugu Desam and the Left to take on the TRS in the 2019 elections.
As far as the TDP is concerned, the party’s working president A. Revanth Reddy said though the party will analyse the result, “It’s not such a great victory that the TRS retained the seat. If the TRS thinks now that it can win any constituency, then KCR should go for bypolls to all the Assembly Constituencies represented by Opposition Congress and TD MLAs who switched over sides to the TRS.”
However, in private, TDP leaders admit that the alliance overestimated the “anti-incumbency” votes, and also agree that people are still supporting the TRS in a big way.
