Communal hate-monger T Raja Singh, representing Goshamahal constituency, is the only MLA from the BJP who survived the KCR wave in the state and won with a majority of 17,734 votes in the Assembly elections. While Prem Singh Rathore from the TRS got 44,120 votes, Singh got 61,854 votes.
Though Raja Singh won the elections against rivals Prem Singh Rathore and former minister Mukesh Goud of the Congress, his margin has dropped significantly. In the 2014 elections, Singh won with a massive margin of 46,973 votes against Mukesh Goud.
Singh, who is active on social media, regularly spews venom against Muslims through videos. In July, he called for “shooting down” the Rohingya Muslims as they were “foreigners.” Besides making several such hateful messages, particularly targeting the Muslim community, during the Una incident the Hindutva hardliner termed beef-eating Dalits as “filthy people”.
While campaigning for the recent elections, Singh issued a death threat to MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi on national television, following which the latter approached the State Election Commission seeking appropriate action against him. Singh has called for a ban on the Quran and had threatened to burn down theatres in Telangana that screened the Bollywood movie Padmaavat. In 2017, he threatened to behead those who opposed the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya.
The rabble-rouser and self-proclaimed cow protection vigilante BJP leader, infamous for making several communal remarks, was the only MLA who retained his seat while his colleagues, including party president K Laxman, Kishan Reddy, Chintala Ramachandra Reddy and NVSS Prabhakar lost from their respective constituencies.
Laxman, contesting from Musheerabad constituency, came a distant third with just 30,813 votes. He was defeated by Muta Gopal of the TRS. Similarly, party strongman and four-time MLA Kishan Reddy contesting from Amberpet lost to Kaleru Venkatesham of the TRS.
The party went to the polls independently without any alliance and had fielded candidates in 118 of the 119 constituencies in Telangana. In the previous 2014 elections, BJP won five Assembly seats – Goshamahal, Musheerabad, Khairtabad, Uppal and Amberpet. However, they are now left with just one MLA, who has 43 cases against him as per his latest affidavit.
Overall, TRS won with a thumping majority of 88 out of 119 seats, virtually decimating opponents, the BJP and the Congress.