Congress' Mallu Ravi defeats BJP's Bharath Prasad Pothuganti in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool

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Congress' Mallu Ravi has won against BJP's Bharath Prasad Pothuganti and others in Nagarkurnool, Telangana, according to early trends available with the election commission of India (ECI).

Ravi beat Pothuganti by over 94,000 votes amassing a total of 4.6 lakh votes.

Bharath Prasad Pothuganti  is the son sitting member of parliament (MP) Pothuganti Ramulu.

Ramulu, who was earlier with the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (formerly Telangana Rashtra Samiti), jumped ship to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in February, dealing a blow to the BRS and helping the BJP make further inroads in the region.

Pothuganti, Ramulu’s son, also joined the BJP along with his father and other leaders, which had further strengthened the chances of BJP winning in Nagarkurnool.

Nagarkurnool comprises seven legislative assembly sections, namely Wanaparthy, Gadwal, Alampur, Nagarkurnool, Achampet, Kalwakurthy and Kollapur.

The Nagarkurnool constituency is reserved for the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs).

The SCs and Scheduled Tribes (STs) voters together constitute about 29 percent of the vote in Nagarkurnool and the region has traditionally been sympathetic towards the Congress and BRS. This vote bank had initially seemed like it was shifting in favour of the BJP, but Ravi's strong show proved to be the winning recipe for the Congress.

During the 2019 elections, Ramulu won from the BRS ticket, but ever since his defection, the regional party has struggled to find its footing. The party has even found it difficult to pick candidates to contest the Lok Sabha elections this year, against the backdrop of its defeat in the assembly elections around four months ago.

However, at an overall state level, according to data available on the election commission of India (ECI), the BJP and Congress are in a neck-t0-neck competition with each other, with both parties leading in eight seats each as of 4:40 pm on June 4.

While Congress won five more seats than it had in 2019, BJP won four extra seats this year. Those gains came at the cost of BRS' downfall.