Two Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) candidates, Surabhi Vani Devi and Palla Rajasekhar Reddy, have won the Legislative elections recently held in the state. The counting was completed on Saturday night, and the results will be officially announced by the Election Commission on Sunday.
Surabhi Vani Devi is the daughter of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. She won as the Member of Legislative Council (MLC) of Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mehboobnagar Graduates constituency, defeating Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) candidate N Ramchander Rao. Vani Devi secured 56.2% of votes, with 92 candidates in the fray.
Vani Devi is a newcomer to the political landscape, and the decision to give her a seat had earlier raised eyebrows from both the ruling and opposition parties.
TRS candidate and sitting MLC from Nalgonda-Khammam and Warangal graduates constituency, Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, won the election. Palla Rajasekhar secured 30.2% of the vote share, defeating independent candidate Teenmar Mallanna.
Counting for the two graduates' constituencies in the southern state proceeded at a slow pace. The counting process took nearly three days as the ballot papers were large in size and a high number of candidates were contesting.
Elections for these constituencies were held on March 14. There were about 10 lakh graduate voters who voted in this Graduate MLC elections.
Winning these two seats were important for the TRS after facing setbacks in the Hyderabad civic polls and Dubbaka bye-polls. Though the mayoral post was retained by the TRS party, several divisions were secured by the BJP, which gave a thorough fight to the TRS.
On Saturday, while the celebrations began at the TRS Bhavan in Hyderabad, a small fire was accidentally started when firecrackers were used by party workers for their victory in the MLC polls. No one was injured in the fire.
(With IANS input)