In a surprising turn of events, Patnam Narender Reddy of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) secured a victory in the Kodangal constituency in Telangana, defeating incumbent MLA and political heavyweight Revanth Reddy, the working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC). While Revanth received 71,435 votes, Narender got 80,754 votes, ensuring the former’s first major defeat in his political career.
Revanth, who has been in politics since 2004, was first elected as MLA on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket in 2009, defeating five-time Kodangal MLA Gurunath Reddy of the TRS by a margin of nearly 7,000 votes. He was then re-elected in 2014, again on a TDP ticket, winning by a margin of over 14,000 votes. Revanth defected to the Congress in October 2017 and along with him, he took a large chunk of his supporters.
After losing twice to Revanth, it appears that Gurunath Reddy decided not to contest this time, but put his weight behind Narender Reddy.
Narender, an MLC, is the brother of incumbent Transport Minister Patnam Mahender Reddy, and was pitted against Revanth to dethrone him. KCR’s nephew and Irrigation Minister Harish Rao had been deployed to ensure Narender’s victory.
Ahead of a TRS campaign rally before the polling day, Revanth had been taken into preventive custody from his residence ahead of caretaker CM and TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao’s election rally at Kosgi in Kodangal. The police had stated that it was a preventive arrest on the orders of the Election Commission because Revanth had appealed to the people in his constituency to boycott the meeting by the TRS chief and hold protests in the area.
Cash-for-vote scam
Revanth, however, is still an accused in an earlier cash-for-vote scam. He was caught red-handed on video by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on May 31, 2015 while he was offering Rs 50 lakh to independent MLA Stephenson to get him to vote for the TDP-BJP candidate in the elections to the Telangana Legislative Council.