In the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly constituency, the Indian National Congress (INC) has returned to power after a decade. This marks the end of the 10-year rule by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the constituency. Narayanan Sri Ganesh from the Congress won the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly bypoll with a margin of 13,206 votes on Tuesday.
After 17 rounds of counting, Mr. Sri Ganesh secured 53,651 votes as against Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Vamsha Tilak who secured 40,445 votes. Niveditha Sayanna of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) was in the third position with 34,462 votes. The bypoll was held as a result of the passing away of the incumbent G. Lasya Nanditha in a road accident in February 2024. Following this, the BRS party selected Nanditha’s sister, Niveditha Sayanna to contest from the seat.
The Assembly constituency was won by Lasya Nanditha of the BRS in the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections. Lasya emerged victorious securing a total of 59,057 votes (47.52%). The second position was secured by Mr. Sri Ganesh who then represented BJP, by getting 41,888 votes (33.64%). Mr. Sri Ganesh, who contested the 2018 and 2023 Telangana Assembly elections under the BJP ticket, secured the second position in 2023 after finishing third in 2018. T.N. Vamsha Tilak currently representing BJP is a new face but has given a close fight to Niveditha Sayanna.
The first election for the Cantonment constituency took place in 1978, with B. Machinder Rao of the Janata Party winning the seat in the wake of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. In the 1994 election, G. Sayanna of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was victorious and held the seat until 2009. P. Shankar Rao of the Congress won the 2009 election. After the formation of Telangana in 2014, G. Sayanna reclaimed the seat for the TDP. In the 2018 election, he ran under the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) banner and retained the seat until his death in February 2023.
