Following their easy win in 2019, BRS candidates are now having difficulties

Five years after its candidates won the 2019 General Elections by massive majorities ranging from 75,000 to 3.6 lakh votes, the BRS seems to be having trouble holding onto its seats.

The party’s struggles are mostly a result of its devastating loss in the 2023 Assembly elections. As a result, a number of MLAs and sitting MPs defected to rival parties, demoralizing the second-tier leaders.

In 2019, the BRS secured nine Lok Sabha seats, seven of which were won with sizable majorities.

With a majority of 3.15 lakh votes, party president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s home district of Medak, where BRS candidate Kotha Prabhakar Reddy was running, prevailed in the most recent election. 5.96 lakh votes were cast for the BRS, 2.79 lakh for the Congress, and 2.01 lakh for the BJP.

Changing the parties and the dynamics

Pasunoori Dayakar, the BRS candidate in Warangal, won by a margin of 3.5 lakh votes. In 2019, Dayakar received 6.12 lakh votes, the Congress candidate received 2.62 lakh, and the BJP received 83,777. Five years later, with Dayakar joining the Congress and M Sudheer Kumar being fielded by the BRS, everything has altered drastically. Interestingly, the BRS did not initially choose Sudheer Kumar; instead, Kadiyam Kavya and her father Kadiyam Srihari joined the Congress.

P Ramulu received 4.99 lakh votes overall and won by 1.89 lakh votes in the Nagarkurnool LS segment. In 2019, the BJP received 1.29 lakh votes, while the Congress received 3.09 lakh votes, placing them in second place. Ramulu has now joined the BJP, however, and his son Bharat is the party’s nominee. RS Praveen Kumar, a retired IPS officer, has been fielded by the BRS.

Borlakunta Venkatesh Netha, a BRS candidate, received a majority of 95,000 votes in the Peddapalli seat, out of a total of 4.41 lakh votes cast.

In 2019, the BJP received 92,000 votes and the Congress candidate, 3.4 lakh. But Venkatesh is now a member of Congress.

Manne Srinivas Reddy won the seat in Mahbubnagar with a 77,829 vote margin. In 2019, he received 4.11 lakh votes overall as opposed to 3.33 lakh for the BJP candidate and 1.93 lakh for the Congress nominee.

Once again, Srinivas Reddy is trying his luck, but the landscape has drastically shifted since the BRS has failed to win even one Assembly segment that counts toward a Lok Sabha seat. Furthermore, because Mahbubnagar is his home district, Chief Minister A Revanth Redy has been giving it his all attention.

Kavitha has a challenging assignment.

Maloth Kavitha won by a margin of 1.46 lakh votes in Mahabubabad. The BRS has deployed her once more. In the 2019 elections, Kavitha received 4.62 lakh votes, the Congress 3.15 lakh, and the BJP got 25,487. But in 2023, the BRS was unable to gain even one Assembly seat that falls inside the Mahabubabad Lok Sabha seat.

Nama Nageswara Rao defeated the Congress candidate in Khammam by a margin of 1.68 lakh votes to win a seat in the Lok Sabha. The great old party received 3.99 lakh votes, Nageswara Rao 5.67 lakh, and the BJP just 20,488. Though he is back in the fight, the district’s only BRS MLA has now joined the Congress.

The competition for leadership in the field has drawn attention due to the Congress’s robust push.

Five years to make improvements

In 2019, BRS secured nine Lok Sabha seats, seven of which were won with sizable majorities.

Nevertheless, the party lost to the Congress in the 2023 Assembly elections.

Afterwards, a number of MLAs and current MPs quit the party, demoralizing the lower-level leaders.