Siddipet: In a nail-biting contest, BJP candidate M Raghunandan Rao won the Dubbak by-election defeating his nearest rival Solipeta Sujatha of TRS by a slender margin of 1,431 votes. While the BJP candidate secured 62,984 votes, the TRS nominee polled 61,553 votes. The BJP got just 0.12 per cent more votes than TRS.
Sujatha’s husband Solipeta Ramalinga Reddy, whose sudden demise in August this year necessitated the election, had won the seat with a majority of 62,500 votes in 2018. The BJP and Congress had got 26,000 and 22,000 votes respectively in 2018.
It is the second smallest victory margin in the history of Dubbak constituency since it was created in 1952. In 1983, Congress candidate A Lingaiah won by a small margin of 369 votes defeating TDP candidate Ramachandra Reddy. Congress candidate Cheruku Muthyam Reddy had, in 2009 Assembly election, won by a margin 2,640 votes over his close rival Ramalinga Reddy.
The counting comprised 23 rounds at Indur Engineering College near Siddipet town. Since the difference between the two main parties was below 1,000 throughout the day, the suspense went on till the last round.
Congress candidate Cheruku Srinivas Reddy finished third polling a little over 22,000 votes. This is BJP’s first win from the constituency.
Of the 23 candidates who contested, B Nagaraju, an independent candidate who contested on a wooden roti maker stand with rolling pin, which looks very similar to the car symbol of TRS, took the fourth spot polling a significant 3,510 votes. No other candidate got more than 2,000 votes, while NOTA votes accounted for 553.
With some EVMs developing technical glitches, the announcement of result was delayed a bit.
The BJP started the first round with a lead of 341 votes, and remained in lead till the 18th round when the TRS secured a slender margin of 172 votes. The ruling party held on to the lead till the 20th round. However, the BJP again secured the lead in 21st, 22nd and 23rd rounds to bag the seat eventually by a small margin.
In postal ballot votes, the TRS candidate polled 768 votes while the BJP got 368 votes out of 1,381 valid votes.
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