From rxpgnews.com
KCR's record win in Karimnagar, Congress wrests Bobbili
By RxPG News Service,
Dec 7, 2006 - 11:21:32 PM
Hyderabad, Dec 7 - The movement for separate statehood for Andhra Pradesh's Telangana region Thursday received a boost with Telangana Rashtra Samiti - president K. Chandrasekhar Rao winning the Karimnagar Lok Sabha by-election with a record margin of over 200,000 votes.
In a contrasting result in the Bobbili Lok Sabha constituency, the by-election for which was also held Monday, the ruling Congress party wrested the seat from the main opposition Telugu Desam Party - by a meagre 157 votes.
Riding on a Telangana wave, former union minister Chandrasekhara Rao, popularly known as KCR, was re-elected with a winning margin of 201,582 votes from Karimnagar in the backward Telangana region defeating T. Jeevan Reddy of the Congress. The margin is the biggest ever in Karimnagar.
Out of 793,932 total votes polled, KCR secured 378,030 votes while Jeevan Reddy, a member of the state assembly, got 176,448. L. Ramana of TDP finished third with 170,268 votes while former union minister Ch. Vidyasagar Rao of the Bharatiya Janata Party -, who was elected in 1998 and 1999 elections and was runner-up in the 2004 polls, finished a poor fourth with 21,144 votes and lost his deposit.
In the bitterly fought by-election Monday, about 57 percent of 1.4 million voters had cast their votes.
The result comes as a big jolt to the Congress as its leaders had challenged the TRS chief to resign and face the people after the party pulled out of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance - government in New Delhi to protest the delay in carving out a separate Telangana state.
The by-poll was being seen as a referendum on the Telangana agitation and the Congress was confident of wresting the seat from the TRS. Several top leaders, including national general secretary Digvijay Singh and Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy had campaigned in the by-elections.
TRS had won five Lok Sabha and 26 assembly seats in the region in 2004 in alliance with the Congress. KCR had then won the Karimnagar seat with a margin of 131,168 votes. The voter turnout then was 65 percent.
The party joined Congress-led coalition governments both in the state and at the centre but pulled out of the state government in July last year to press for its demand for separate Telangana. After setting many deadlines, KCR and his party colleague A. Narendra resigned as central ministers in August this year.
In the Bobbili constituency in north coastal Andhra, the ruling party managed to scrape through with a slender margin of 157 votes but the TDP refused to accept the result and demanded a recount.
Congress candidate Botsa Jhansi, wife of Marketing Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, defeated TDP's K. Appala Naidu. Out of 703,400 votes polled, Jhansi, a runner- up in 2004 polls, secured 334,321 votes while Appala Naidu got 334,164. The BJP finished third with 14,837 votes.
Tension prevailed at the counting centre in Vijyanagaram as TDP workers, demanding recounting of votes, clashed with the police and Congress workers.
About 72 percent of nearly a million voters had cast their votes in the by-poll. The seat fell vacant due to the death of Appala Naidu's father and TDP's sitting member Pydithali Naidu recently.
Alleging that the returning officer had resorted to malpractices, the TDP workers took to the streets and blocked traffic near the counting centre.
In Hyderabad, TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu demanded recounting of votes in every electronic voting machine.
In 2004, Appala Naidu's father Pydithalli Naidu of TDP had defeated Jhansi by 31,348 votes. The voter turnout then was 76.54 percent.
The win in Bobbili will take Congress' tally of Lok Sabha seats in the state to 30 out of total 42 in the state.
In the 2004 polls, the Congress had bagged 29 seats, while its then ally TRS got five seats and Communist Party of India - and Communist Party of India Marxist - one seat each. The TDP could secure only five seats while one seat to Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen -.
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