Jubilee Hills bypoll win gives Telangana CM Revanth Reddy strong fillip

Hyderabad, Nov 14 (PTI) The Jubilee Hills Assembly by-election victory is a shot in the arm for Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who made the poll a prestigious battle for the party and further consolidated his position.

With the win, the Congress’s tally in the 119-member Assembly rose to 66. This is the second bypoll the party has won in the last two years.

Congress candidate V Naveen Yadav on Friday won the by-election to the Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency—crucial for both the ruling Congress and the BRS—by a majority of 24,729 votes.

Yadav secured 98,988 votes, while his nearest BRS rival Maganti Sunitha got 74,259 votes.

The bypoll was necessitated by the sudden death of sitting BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath in June this year.

BJP nominee Lankala Deepak Reddy, who secured 17,061 votes, stood third and forfeited his security deposit.

The Congress pulled out all the stops to woo Muslim voters, who constitute about 25 per cent of the nearly four lakh electorate, including by making former cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin a minister and convincing AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi to support Naveen Yadav.

During the run-up to the polls, Revanth Reddy himself held street-corner meetings across the segment, outlining welfare schemes and infrastructure development in the city, and urging people to vote for the party.

The voters appear to have responded favourably.

Telangana PCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud expressed confidence that the result would be replicated in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Elections whenever they are held.

“With this victory, people have given a clear message that they are with the Congress and that the party will win 100 seats in the next Assembly elections. This positive wave will continue,” Goud told reporters.

On the other hand, the BRS’s defeat may further demoralise the party cadre, though the trend may not necessarily continue until the next Assembly polls.

This is the second consecutive defeat in the city for the K Chandrasekhar Rao–led party, after it lost the Secunderabad Cantonment seat in June 2024.

The consolation for the party is that although it lost a sitting seat, the margin of defeat is not very large.

The setback may cast a shadow on BRS working president K T Rama Rao’s ability to lead the party without the involvement of his father, KCR, who did not campaign during the bypoll.

Interestingly, reacting to the poll outcome, KCR’s estranged daughter Kavitha said in a post, “Karma hits back.” For the BJP, the result amounts to neither a loss nor a gain in terms of seats. But in terms of votes, the party has put up a poor show compared to the last Assembly elections. PTI GDK SSK SSK ROH