Readiness to help sees Devireddy Sudheer Reddy romp home

LB Nagar: The LB Nagar constituency is one of the 21 constituencies where the Congress registered poll victory as a partner in the People’s Front (PF), despite the TRS landslide victory in Telangana.  Though bigwigs in the Congress party bit the dust, Devireddy Sudheer Reddy managed to win LB Nagar seat with a majority of 17,848 votes. The counting of votes went for 37 rounds, where the PF nominee got 1,42,988 votes and his nearest TRS candidate Muddagouni Rammohan Goud garnered 95,766 votes. BJP candidate Perala Shekar Rao got 21,418 votes. 

Independent candidate Challa Ramu Kalyan garnered 3,739 whereas 3,072 votes were accounted for by the NOTA (None Of The Above). Interestingly, 417 postal ballots also favoured Sudheer Reddy’s candidature. The Votes polled to the NOTA became a point of debate in the constituency, despite there being well-known candidates from three main parties. Muddagouni Rammohan Goud who is also party in-charge of the constituency faced consecutive defeats with this election. He had unsuccessfully contested from the seat in the 2014 elections too. This time the party high command that was in the power paved way for the early dissolution of the State Assembly and dared face early elections. It announced the list of candidates almost three months before the polling day. 

Muddagouni who is also well-known local leader in the constituency for the past two decades started the poll campaign even as the other parties were dithering on selecting their candidates. It is not an exaggeration to say he almost touched each and every household in various colonies of LB Nagar and put all his efforts to garner their votes. But, according to party sources, decrease in the poll percentage may have contributed to his poll debacle. The constituency is located on the city outskirts and most of the people residing there migrated from other districts. They left for their native places to cast their votes, which dampened Muddagouni’s hopes on them in winning the seat. 

BY Pasunuru Venkatesh