Huzurabad result: BRS Kaushik Reddy turns giant killer; defeats BJP senior Eatala

Hyderabad: Recording the defeat of a senior leader, BJP’s Eatala Rajender lost the Huzurabad Assembly constituency with a margin of 16,873 votes while Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) retained the seat with their new candidate MLC Padi Kaushik Reddy, in the Telangana State Assembly Elections 2023.

Eatala Rajender joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2021 after serving the BRS government as state health minister. He had represented the Huzurabad Assembly constituency from 2004 to 2021, and in the bye-election to the seat in the same year following his resignation, Eatala won Huzurabad with a margin of 23,855 votes.

Huge margins earlier

In the State Assembly elections from 2004 to 2018, Eatala was on a winning streak by securing the constituency multiple times with a margin of around 20,000 votes each time. Highly popular in the region, people there supported him through these terms. In the BRS government, he was the finance minister and also the health minister during the time of Covid-19 and the lockdown. After a fallout with former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Eatala left BRS in 2021.

Sympathy for Kaushik

Huzurabad has been the bastion of BRS and people were not happy with his shift to the BJP. While his supporters were rooting for Eatala, the switch between the parties did not go well.

The campaign carried out by Kaushik Reddy gained him sympathy in the end as people did not want to give up their support for BRS. Reddy also warned on the last day that ‘his family would commit suicide if people did not vote for them.’ This too had an impact on the psyche of the people.

Rajender troubled in the region

The 59-year-old Rajender who was highly popular in Huzurabad was troubled ever since his exit from BRS, and especially in the last six months.

Although he was given a position in the BJP, it did not materialise into support at the ground level. A senior member of his team explained, “He was always looked at as an outsider. He was left alone when he was troubled with police cases put on him by the ruling BRS. He only had the support of the people who along with him left BRS. That number was minimal. All these factors have added up during the voting.”

With people weighing pros and cons in terms of local leadership and support, Eatala was on the back foot in Huzurabad this time.

Other candidates in Huzurabad

The young Congress candidate for Huzurabad, Vodithala Pranav, polled 53,164 votes. The other 19 candidates in the constituency have together polled about 20,000 votes which led to ‘vote-cutting’.