BJP candidate from Karimnagar Parliamentary constituency Bandi Sanjay Kumar sprang a surprise by defeating political heavyweights including sitting MP and TRS deputy leader in Lok Sabha B. Vinod Kumar and TPCC working president and former MP Ponnam Prabhakar.
A three-time municipal corporator from Karimnagar, Mr. Sanjay Kumar (48) had contested from the Karimnagar Assembly segment in 2014 and 2018 elections, but lost to TRS candidate Gangula Kamalakar. For the first time, the party had fielded him from the Karimnagar Parliamentary constituency.
Mr. Sanjay Kumar, who is now BJP State official spokesperson, banked solely on his sympathy of losing two Assembly elections besides playing the Hindutva card with the support of party’s frontal organisations.
As soon as counting started on Thursday morning, Mr. Sanjay Kumar continued his winning spree by securing leads from the postal ballots onwards. Against a total of 9,381 postal ballots polled, the BJP candidate secured 3,062 votes, TRS 2,939 and Congress 2,891. When votes from the EVMs began to be counted, the BJP candidate maintained his lead from the first round to the last round. Though the BJP does not have any representation from all the seven Assembly segments, he steered the party to victory.
Talking to newspersons, Mr Sanjay Kumar said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s objectionable remarks against the majority community during electioneering in Karimnagar had led to Hindus uniting against the TRS and electing him.
He also claimed people of Karimnagar district had taught the Chief Minister a fitting lesson for “deceiving them with false promises”.
