The ruling TRS candidate and former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao’s daughter S Vani Devi was ahead of her nearest BJP rival after three rounds as counting of votes in the election to two Telangana Legislative Council seats from graduates constituencies was underway on Thursday night. The process of counting of votes began on Wednesday but is expected to conclude on Friday or later as newspaper-sized ballot papers were used for polling in view of the large number of candidates in the fray and also because the voters exercised their franchise in a preferential method.
Vani Devi, an educationist, was leading by 4,444 votes over her BJP rival and sitting MLC N Ramachander Rao after the completion of third round, official sources said. Vani Devi secured 53,007 votes, while Rao got 48,563 votes, they said.
Counting was also underway in Nalgonda falling under the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda Graduates constituency, where TRS nominee Palla Rajeshwar Reddy was leading. Polling was held on March 14 for the two Graduates’ constituencies.
The total number of voters in the two constituencies is over 10 lakh. Vani Devi is the ruling TRS candidate from the Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad Graduates constituency.
As many as 93 candidates were in the fray from Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad constituency, while 71 nominees contested from the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency. The votes of the Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad constituency are counted in the state capital.
Having suffered setbacks in the Dubbak assembly constituency bypoll and Hyderabad civic polls late last year, the TRS made a determined bid to win the two seats, while the BJP sought to continue the momentum following its impressive performance in the Hyderabad civic election. The Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad seat is witnessing a close contest as G Chinna Reddy of Congress, TDP’s Telangana unit president L Ramana and former MLC K Nageshwar, a journalism professor and prominent analyst, are in the fray.
The main candidates from Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda seat are sitting MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy of TRS, G Premender Reddy (BJP), Ramulu Naik (Congress) and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) leader M Kodandaram.
As many as 170 MLAs left the Congress to join other parties during the elections held between 2016-2020, while only 18 BJP legislators switched parties to contest the polls in this period, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The report said between 2016-2020, 182 of the 405 re-contesting MLAs, who switched political parties, joined the BJP, followed by 38 who joined the Congress and 25 who joined the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
Here’s a look at some of the prominent names that quit parties or switched sides ahead of elections:
Jyotiraditya Scindia
Jyotiraditya Scindia had switched over to the BJP in March 2020 along with 22 supporter MLAs. Their resignation from the Congress and the MP Assembly led to the fall of the Kamal Nath government on March 20, and return of Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister on March 23. In his resignation letter, Scindia said he was unable to serve the country and his state while remaining in the Congress.
Suvendu Adhikari
West Bengal political heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari joined the BJP on December 19, 2020 days after he resigned from the Trinamool Congress and gave up his cabinet portfolios in the Mamata Banerjee government. In an open letter addressed to the grassroots members of the Trinamool Congress, Adhikari said West Bengal is standing at a critical juncture as the people of the state are destined to make a choice in the 2021 Assembly elections that will impact them forever. Adhikari said that “an extremely deep rot and malaise” has set in in the Trinamool Congress.
Dinesh Trivedi
On February 12 this year, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Dinesh Trivedi resigned from Rajya Sabha over “violence” taking place in Bengal ahead of assembly elections. He further said that he was feeling ‘restless’, ‘suffocated’ and finding it difficult to work in the TMC for quite some time. Trivedi joined the BJP on March 6, 2021.
Ramesh Jarkiholi
Congress rebel Ramesh Jarkiholi resigned and joined BJP in 2019. In June 2016, he was inducted into the Siddaramaiah-led government of Karnataka as a cabinet minister. He held the Small Scale Industries Ministry portfolio. He was disqualified from the assembly as per the anti-defection law in 2019, but was re-elected to the assembly on a BJP ticket in December 2019.
Tom Vadakkan
Once a key aide to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, prominent spokesperson Tom Vadakkan left the party after serving for almost two decades for its leaders in March 2019. He attacked his party for its stand on the Balakot airstrike as ‘sad’ and joined BJP in the presence of the then party president Amit Shah and minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Sabita Indra Reddy
Sabitha Indra Reddy was Home Minister in the Congress government in united Andhra Pradesh. On June 7, 2019, five Congress MLAs, led by senior MLA Sabita Indra Reddy, met TRS working president K T Rama Rao and submitted a list of 12 MLAs willing to join the ruling party.
Rita Bahuguna Joshi
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee Chief and MLA Rita Bahuguna Joshi quit Congress and joined BJP in October 2016. She hit out at Rahul Gandhi and top leaders saying the leadership was not acceptable to people as the grand old party had lost its reputation under them.
Khushbu Sundar
Actor-turned-politician Khushbu Sundar quit the Congress on Monday to join the BJP saying that she had realised that the nation can only move forward under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She joined the saffron party at its national headquarters. In her career in politics, Khushbu first served in the DMK and then joined Congress. With the BJP, she begins her 3rd innings in politics. Khushbu, while resigning, in a letter to Sonia Gandhi also protested against what she termed as some leaders’ “dictating terms”.
Urmila Matondkar
Bollywood actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar, who contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket, quit the party in barely five months saying she did not wish to be used for “petty in-house politics”. “It is obvious that the key functionaries of Mumbai Congress are either unable or not committed to bring about a change and transformation in the organisation for the betterment of the party,” she said in a statement to the media. She later joined the Shiv Sena.
PC Chacko
Kerala Congress leader PC Chacko on Wednesday submitted his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi saying that it had become difficult to be a Congress leader in Kerala. This comes even as the party has been finalising its list in Kerala that goes to polls on April 6. “No democracy left in Congress. Candidate list has not been discussed with the state Congress committee. I have sent my resignation to Sonia Gandhi,” he said. He has, however, denied plans of joining BJP so far.
