BRS not keen on contesting Council by-elections

Hyderabad: With the result being certain in the ensuing by-election for two Council seats under the MLA quota, the BRS is not keen on contesting. The party would have got at least one seat in the traditional voting pattern, but with the change brought in by the Election Commission in the process, the ruling party is slated to get the two seats. Sources said the party leadership is not keen to contest the by-poll, as there are no chances of winning the seat.

The EC has released the notification for the by-election on January 11. The polling, if necessary, will be held on January 29. The notification this time was different as two separate notifications for two seats. This has led to re-consideration on contesting by the BRS. The BRS leaders Kadiyam Srihari and Padi Kaushik were elected to the Council under the MLA quota in November 2021. With both getting elected for the Assembly in December 2023, the two seats got vacant. The 119 members of the Assembly will vote two times. The Congress party has 64 members plus one member from the CPI; the BRS has 39 members followed by the BJP (eight) and AIMIM (seven). The Congress candidates have a brighter chance of winning the seat with all MLAs voting twice. With this two more members will now be added to the Congress in the Council, where it has low strength.

The main Opposition party had believed that it could win the second seat easily with its strength. Even before it could finalise the candidates, it was a shock to them with EC changing the election process. The party, which had lost the Singareni trade union election, is faced another shocker. Sources said the party leadership does not want to contest the election. There is a risk that some members may cross vote, which would give a wrong message that something is not good in the party and there will be an impact on the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, said a senior BRS leader.

The party leaders who got indication of it not being keen on contesting the election are ‘demoralised’. A few leaders are upset when Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan rejected the names of two BRS leaders under the Governor’s quota. Now with two more seats going out of hands of the party the aspirants are upset.