The Election Commission of India (ECI) declared the polling results for the State of Telangana on Sunday (3rd December). While much of the election analysis remained fixated on the Congress that trumped the incumbent BRS government, the BJP’s electoral performance in Telangana is a success story in itself.
The saffron party came third in the race, beating the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). BJP won 8 seats in the 2023 Telangana assembly elections, which is 7 times higher than the number of seats it won in 2018.
It has increased its vote share to 13.90% and secured a whopping 32. 57 lakh votes in the process. In contrast, the party’s vote share was only 6.98% in the 2018 Telangana assembly election. BJP had only won 1 seat at that time.
As per the results declared by the Election Commission of India, BJP has increased its vote share by about 6.92% in the 2023 Telangana polls. This is remarkable in the sense that AIMIM, which has a stronghold in Hyderabad, could only secure 2.2% of the total votes.
Until five years ago, BJP relied heavily on its heavyweight candidate T Raja Singh and his performance in the Goshamahal constituency. However this time, the party has been able to defeat sitting Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and State Congress President Anumula Revanth Reddy in their bastion of Kamareddy.
In 2018, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) won in this particular constituency while the Congress party was the runner-up. The scenario changed completely in 2023. Katiapally Venkata Ramana Reddy of the BJP defeated both the BRS and the Congress despite the party being a distant third five years before.
On Sunday (3rd December), BJP’s Paidi Rakesh Reddy won from the Armur constituency while Dhanpal Suryanaryana emerged victorious from the Nizamabad (urban) constituency. Both the seats were won by the BRS in 2018.
The saffron party also trumped its opponents in the Adilabad and Sirpur constituencies where Payal Shanker and Dr Palvai Harish Babu managed to win comfortably. In the 2018 election, Payal Shanker was the runners-up from the Adilabad seat and had lost the polls by a margin of over 26,606 votes.
Despite this, the BJP reposed its faith in him and Shanker won by a margin of 6,692 votes in the 2023 Telangana election. Ram Rao Pawar of the BJP won from the Mudhole constituency, which the party had lost in 2018.
BJP candidate Alleti Maheshwar Reddy also managed to unseat BRS’ Allola Indrakaran Reddy in his bastion of Nirmal by over 50000 votes. T Raja Singh also continued his winning streak from the Goshamahal constituency, thus becoming a 4-time MLA.
While the BJP ranked third in the 2023 Telangana polls, it was able to outperform itself when compared to the electoral performance of 2018. This would boost the morale of the party cadre and would eventually help the saffron party to make deeper inroads in the Southern State.
When the result of the Telangana elections is analysed in the context of other States such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, it becomes clear that the BJP has triumphed in every possible way ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
