While the Telangana Rashtra Samithi saw a landslide victory in the state Assembly elections trouncing its opponents and getting a comfortable mandate of 88 seats, the party did suffer a blow with four cabinet ministers and the Speaker losing their constituencies.
Assembly Speaker and sitting MLA Madhusudhana Chari who re-contested from Bhupalapalle constituency in Warangal conceded defeat to G Venkata Ramana Reddy of the Congress, who secured 69,918 votes. Similarly, Tummala Nageshwara Rao, minister of road and buildings, Transport Minister P Mahender Reddy, Rural Development Minister Jupally Krishna Rao and Tribal Welfare Minister Azmeera Chandulal lost from their respective constituencies.
Among the losing TRS ministers, Mahender Reddy contesting from Tandur lost to Congress candidate Rohith Reddy with a small difference of 2,875 votes. Tummala Nageshwara once again faced a defeat in the Assembly election after he lost in the 2014 elections. However, after a bye-election was held, following the death of MLA Ramreddy Venkat Reddy, Tummala won the election and became the minister. Krishna Rao from Kollapur lost to Congress candidate Beeram Harshavardhan Reddy, and Chandulal from Mulug lost to Congress candidate Anasuya Danasari.
These, however, were minor setbacks to the TRS as the party defeated many senior leaders from both the Congress and the BJP. The TRS managed to oust CM aspirants from Congress, K Jana Reddy, Revanth Reddy, and other bigwigs including DK Aruna, Geeta Reddy, Shabbir Ali, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Padmavati Reddy.
The BJP, which had five MLAs in 2014, was left with just one MLA in the state. In a major embarrassment, even the BJP state president K Laxman faced defeat. Four-time MLA and former BJP state president Kishan Reddy also lost in the elections.
In the elections, TRS won 88 seats, Congress won 19 seats, AIMIM won 7 seats, Telugu Desam won 2 seats, while BJP won one seat.
Meanwhile, the TRS chief, K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that the oath-taking ceremony will take place on Thursday.