Hyderabad, Nov 14 (NationPress) The ruling Congress party of Telangana successfully secured the Jubilee Hills Assembly seat in a bye-election, triumphing over the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) with a significant margin on Friday.

In a head-to-head battle, V. Naveen Yadav from Congress outperformed his closest competitor, Maganti Sunitha, by a staggering 24,729 votes, marking the largest victory margin in the history of this constituency.

Naveen Yadav garnered 98,988 votes, whereas Sunitha received 74,259 votes. The BJP candidate, Lankala Deepak Reddy, came in a distant third, managing only 17,061 votes, which led to the forfeiture of his security deposit.

From the outset, the Congress candidate maintained a lead in every counting round, while the BRS failed to establish any advantage.

The bye-election witnessed a turnout of 48.49%, with 1,94,631 out of a total of 4,01,365 voters participating.

The Congress party captured 50.83% of the votes cast, while the BRS secured 38.13%, and the BJP only achieved 8.76%.

Despite 58 candidates contesting, the fourth-highest vote count went to None Of The Above (NOTA), with 924 voters choosing this option.

This bye-election was necessitated by the passing of Maganti Gopinath from the BRS. The main opposition party nominated his wife in hopes of leveraging a sympathy wave, but this strategy backfired for KCR's faction.

This victory marks the Congress party's second bye-election win since it assumed power in 2023, having previously taken the Secunderabad Cantonment seat from the BRS last year after the untimely death of BRS MLA G. Lasya Nanditha in a road accident.

With this win, the Congress party's representation in the 119-member Assembly increases to 66 seats.

The triumph also serves as a morale booster for Congress in Greater Hyderabad, a region where it failed to secure any seats in the November 2023 elections.

This victory is expected to uplift the spirits of the party's supporters ahead of the upcoming Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections.

The bye-election was viewed as a matter of prestige for both the Congress and the BRS. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and his full Cabinet vigorously campaigned for their candidate.

The BRS, which aimed to recover from its losses in the recent Lok Sabha elections, faced another setback on Friday.

The BRS had characterized the bye-election as a referendum on the performance of the Congress government.

Upon receiving the election certificate from the Returning Officer, Naveen Yadav expressed gratitude to the voters, stating they had responded aptly to those who attempted to smear him. He pledged to address the concerns of the constituency's residents.

Celebrations erupted within the Congress camp as ministers and senior leaders congratulated one another at the party headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan. Party supporters marked the victory with fireworks and sweet distributions.

Hyderabad in-charge minister Ponnam Prabhakar encouraged Congress supporters statewide to celebrate this bye-election win.

He asserted that the Congress government has introduced numerous welfare initiatives while both the BRS and the BJP propagated misleading narratives against the government.

In 2023, Gopinath of the BRS achieved a remarkable hat-trick against his nearest rival, Mohammed Azharuddin of Congress, winning by a margin of 16,337 votes.

The BRS candidate received 80,549 votes, while Azharuddin obtained 64,212 votes. The BJP's Deepak Reddy finished third with 25,866 votes, and AIMIM's Farazuddin was fourth with only 7,848 votes.

This election season, AIMIM, led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, endorsed the Congress candidate.