Win eludes Congress in Medak, once represented by Indira Gandhi

Hyderabad, April 19 (IANS) The Congress is still in search of its first win since 1998 in the Medak constituency, which was once represented by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The BJP won the seat in 1999 but it has been the citadel of the TRS (now BRS) since 2004.This time the constituency is set to witness a close three-cornered contest with the Congress making a determined bid to regain the lost ground. After capturing power in the state in recent elections, the party is confident of wresting it from BRS.For the first time in a decade, the BRS looks relatively weak after losing power and defection of several key leaders to either Congress or BJP but the BRS continues to maintain its grip in Medak, the home district of the party supremo and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR).The BJP is also keen to repeat its performance of 1999 when A. Narendra was elected from here. He later shifted loyalty to the BRS and was elected for a second term on the BRS ticket in 2004.In 2019, Kotha Prabhakar Reddy retained the seat with a massive majority of over 3.16 lakh votes against Gali Anil Kumar of Congress. BJP’s M. Raghunandan Rao was a distant third.Raghunandan Rao, who was defeated in Dubbak, one of the Assembly segments under Medak, in 2018, won the by-election from Dubbak in 2020. In fact his victory by a slender margin of 1,079 votes against BRS candidate Solipeta Sujatha Reddy marked the beginning of BJP’s rise in Telangana