KCR's party TRS has won Telangana's Munugode bypoll
Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's party TRS has won the by-election in Telangana's Munugode by over 10,000 votes. The TRS candidate, K Prabhakar Reddy, did face a tough fight from the BJP's K Rajagopal Reddy.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), recently renamed as Bharat Rashtra Samithi, had gone all out with the Chief Minister, or KCR, holding public meetings and deploying his entire team of ministers and MLAs to ensure a win.
The TRS candidate, K Prabhakar Reddy, took a significant lead to be declared the winner eventually. K Rajagopal Reddy, the BJP candidate, was with the Congress earlier. The by-election was necessitated after he quit the Congress to join the BJP.
Mr Reddy's defeat would be a humiliating turn for him.
The campaigns ahead of the Munugode bypoll saw heavy spending by both the TRS and the BJP.
TRS supporters and workers burst into celebrations at the party headquarters in Hyderabad. Over 93 per cent polling was reported in the bypoll held on November 3.
For KCR, the Munugode bypoll was a prestige battle as a BJP victory would have signalled a crack in the TRS' defensive line, through which the BJP would have entered and worked to expand its presence.
For the Congress too, it was a humiliating defeat with Palvai Sravanthi losing her deposit. Ms Sravanthi told NDTV they knew they were up against money, liquor and two ruling governments.