From Cong fortress to 3-way fight: How Khairatabad rewrote its political script | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Khairatabad’s political trajectory mirrors the changing contours of urban electoral politics in Hyderabad. Once considered a Congress bastion shaped largely by the influence of veteran leader P Janardhan Reddy (PJR), the constituency has evolved into a fiercely contested battleground among the Congress, BJP and BRS, with no party managing to secure a majority vote share in any assembly election since Telangana’s formation.The shift became evident in the first election after statehood in 2014, when BJP’s Chintala Ramachandra Reddy captured the seat with 37.3% of the vote, defeating Congress candidate Danam Nagender and ending the party’s hold over the constituency.The political equations changed yet again in 2018. By then, Danam had switched from Congress to then TRS and reclaimed the seat for his new party, securing nearly 45% of the votes. BJP’s Chintala finished second with 24.5%, while Congress’s Dasoju Sravan Kumar polled 23.7%.The BRS retained the constituency in 2023, with Danam winning a second consecutive term. He secured 43.8% of the vote, while Congress candidate P Vijaya Reddy garnered 29.3% and Chintala got 24.8%.Although BRS held on to the seat, Congress emerged as the principal challenger, pushing BJP to third place. Significantly, none of the winners in the three post-Telangana elections crossed the 50% vote share mark, underscoring the constituency’s increasingly competitive nature.Khairatabad’s electoral history, however, stretches back far beyond the Telangana era. Congress’s BV Gurumurthy won the seat in 1967, followed by Nagam Krishna Rao in 1972. The constituency later became synonymous with PJR, who won four times in 1978, 1985, 1989 and 1994, establishing Congress’s dominance for much of the pre-Telangana period.The Congress’s run was briefly interrupted in 1983 when independent candidate M Ramchander Rao defeated PJR with 41.6% of the vote. The setback proved temporary, as PJR regained the constituency in 1985 with 48.3%.The Telugu Desam Party broke Congress’s grip once again in 1999, with K Vijaya Rama Rao winning the seat with nearly 50% of the vote. Congress returned to power in 2004 when PJR secured a decisive victory with 53.4% of the vote.Following PJR’s death in 2008, his son P Vishnuvardhan Reddy won the bypoll for Congress with an emphatic 67% vote share. The constituency was subsequently reshaped under the 2008 delimitation exercise, which retained Khairatabad as assembly constituency No. 60 while carving out Jubilee Hills as a separate assembly segment.In the 2009 assembly election, Danam led Congress to victory with 39.1% of the vote, ahead of TDP’s Rama Rao and Chintala. It proved to be Congress’s last win in Khairatabad before the post-Telangana political realignment.Since then, the constituency has witnessed a series of political transitions. Congress dominated much of the pre-Telangana era, BJP made a breakthrough in 2014, TRS wrested the seat in 2018 and BRS retained it in 2023. The constituency has also been shaped by familiar political faces, with Danam winning elections under different party banners and Chintala remaining BJP’s principal contender through the Telangana period.For now, the constituency has moved from one-party dominance to a genuinely three-cornered contest.Khairatabad has undergone a marked shift in its electoral politics, moving from a constituency strongly associated with Congress and P Janardhan Reddy to a three-way contest involving Congress, BJP and BRS after formation of Telangana.GFXKHAIRATABAD BYPOLL: Names doing rounds as aspirantsBRSDasoju SravanSai Kiran YadavBJPChintala Ramachandra ReddyCheekoti PraveenIndrasena Reddy, official spokespersonCongressDanam NagenderRohin Reddy