Congress storms into BRS bastion Telangana, expands footprint in south

Extending its winning run in the south the Congress on Sunday won 64 Assembly seats to form government in the BRSdominated Telangana with the southern solace coming in the midst of a saffron sweep of the Hindi heartland where BJP wrested two states from the grand old party and retainedCongress had made a strong comeback in neighbouring Karnataka in May defeating the BJP in the polls thenThe near 10 yearold rule of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti BRS came to an end on Sunday even as Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao tendered resignation from his post which was accepted by Governor Tamilisai SoundararajanBRS has been ruling the state since 2014 when Telangana was carved out of Andhra PradeshThe party which has 101 members in the outgoing Assembly emerged victorious in 38 and was leading in 1 seat as per latest EC figuresCongress won 64 of the 118 seats it contested from It gave one seat to CPI where the communist party emerged victorious AIMIM won 6 seats and was leading in oneA Congress delegation later mer Telangana Governor to stake claim on forming governmentThe Telangana Assembly has a total strength of 119 The BRS has 101 members in the outgoing House while Asaduddin Owaisiled AIMIM has 7 Congress 5 BJP 3 The All India Forward Bloc has one legislator There is one independent while there is one vacancyAnumula Revanth Reddy who led the Congress charge finds himself on the brink of a potential chief ministership The 56 yearold leader met top police officials of the state and discussed the security arrangements for the swearingin ceremony likely on December 4 or 9He welcomed the peoples mandate in favour of the national party while BRS expressed disappointment over its failure to ensure a hattrickIt is a peoples mandate We need not do a postmortem Everything goes well then only you will get that magic number The simple point is that they people wanted to change They wanted to defeat KCR CM Rao They have defeated KCR Thats all Reddy told reportersReddy said the people have decided the role of the opposition and Congress expects the BRSs cooperation in order to fulfil the peoples aspirationsTo revive democratic values we are expecting that the BRS will come forward he saidIt is the Congress responsibility to fulfil Telangana peoples aspirations after forming the government in the state he addedBRS working president and KCRs son K T Rama Rao said the assembly poll results were disappointing though he was not saddenedGrateful to the people of Telangana for giving BRSparty two consecutive terms of Government Not saddened over the result today but surely disappointed as it was not in expected lines for us But we will take this in our stride as a learning and will bounce back he saidCongratulations to Congress party on winning the mandate Wishing you Good Luck the BRS leader who won from Sircilla further saidFactors such as antiincumbency voter fatigue and dissatisfaction among the youth contributed mainly to the poor showing of the BRSDespite the towering image of KCR along with the partys extensive grassroots network and welfare programmes the perceived inaccessibility of its leaders contributed to the growing antiincumbency sentiments Six cabinet members were among the prominent BRS figures that lostAdditionally the opposition projection of what they called the BRS family rule in the state further exacerbated this sentimentThe Congress had mounted a spirited election campaign with a view to unseat BRS even as the BJP also launched a no holdsbarred attack against the ruling dispensationThe BJP may not have seen the desired results but may take solace from the fact that it has bettered on its seats tally and the voteshareWhile it won just 1 seat in the 2018 assembly polls the BJP added 7 more this time and saw its voteshare expand from 7 per cent then to 1388 per cent this time The party also won two bypolls earlier giving it three members in the outgoing assemblyBJPs K Venkata Ramana Reddy emerged as a giant killer by defeating Chief Minister and BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao and Revanth Reddy in KamareddyWhile the BJP was seen as a principal challenger to the BRS earlier the perception changed after Congress gained momentum following the Karnataka elections in May this yearJubilant mood prevailed at the residence of Revanth Reddy and the partys state headquartersCelebrations broke out at Gandhi Bhavan the party office where overjoyed workers were seen setting off crackers and raising Jai Congress and Revanth Anna Zindabad slogansSecurity was also stepped up at Revanth Reddys residence with additional police personnel being deployedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever