The Hindu : Front Page : Congress, allies win 7 seats

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Friday, Mar 18, 2011
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Congress, allies win 7 seats

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The Congress escaped defeat when Mohd. Jani, a prestigious candidate by virtue of being Deputy Chairman of the Upper House, scraped through by a whisker in the elections held to 10 Council seats on Thursday.

He won in the elimination round by the narrowest of margins over TDP's K. Pratibha Bharati, whereas a lesser known Congress candidate like M. Ranga Reddy won in the very first round, that too with a surplus of five votes.

As feared, Congress MLAs owing loyalty to former MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy defied the party whip asking them to vote for Mr. Jani and cross-voted in favour of MIM candidate S. Altaf Hyder Rizvi. The MIM, an electoral ally of the Congress, has just seven MLAs, but Mr. Rizvi secured a whopping 36 first preference votes, the highest among 12 candidates in fray.

TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu's strategy in fielding Ms. Bharati as his fourth candidate in expectation of dissension in the Congress ranks missed the target, though narrowly. The TRS suffered the ignominy of its lone candidate not able to muster the full support of its 11 legislators.

In all, five Congress candidates, one each of its allies, MIM and PR, two TDP and one candidate of its ally, the CPI made it to the Upper House. They are: P. Venkata Rao, M. Ranga Reddy, M. Sudhakar Babu, Mohd. Jani and B. Chengalrayudu (Congress), S.V. Satish Kumar Reddy and B. Gangadhar Goud (TDP), P.J. Chandrasekhar Rao (CPI), C. Ramachandraiah (PR) and Altaf Rizvi (MIM).

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