BJP Faring Badly In Both Telugu States

The BJP, which has been leaving no stone unturned to gain footholds in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, today seems to be faring rather poorly in both the states despite all its efforts.

In Telangana, while the TRS won the Nagarjuna Sagar by-election with a comfortable lead of over 18,000 votes and the Congress came in second after winning 70,932 votes, the BJP's candidate Panugothu Ravi Kumar Naik was a distant third with only 7,676 votes.

The results clearly show that the BJP's strategy to bank on caste-based support, which it attempted to solicit by fielding an ST candidate, came to naught.

In AP too, the saffron party did not fare any better and bagged only a meagre portion of the votes in the Tirupati by-election.

Where the YSR Congress Party's M Gurumoorthy won the Tirupati seat with a thumping majority and a margin of 2,71,592 votes over the TDP's Panabaka Lakshmi, his closest rival, who won 3,54,516 votes, the BJP's K Rathna Prabha was far behind both her rivals with some 57,080 votes.

The two by-elections had given the BJP a chance to prove its growing dominance in both the Telugu states. However, many political analysts believe with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity on the wane, the party's AP and Telangana units did not really have a shot at winning the two elections.

Its performance in the elections held across five Indian states has also proved that the BJP is indeed losing its earlier popularity.