The Election Commission last week announced that voting on all the 543 Lok Sabha seats in India will take place from April 19 to June 1 in seven phases. Telangana, which has 17 parliamentary constituencies, will go to polls in a single phase on May 13. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.
Telangana, separated from Andhra Pradesh in 2014 through the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, will witness a three-cornered contest between the ruling Congress party, the BJP-led NDA and the K Chandrashekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), formerly known as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
Of the 17 seats in Telangana, three are reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and two for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates. The rest are unreserved.
During the 2019 general elections, the BRS (then TRS) emerged as the dominant party in the state, securing the win of nine seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stood second with four seats, while the Congress and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) were restricted to three and one respectively.
Despite facing setbacks in the last Lok Sabha polls, the Congress party is anticipating a resurgence this time, buoyed by a dominating performance in the Assembly elections in 2023, winning 64 of the 119 seats.
Here's a look at the key Lok Sabha seats in Telangana:
An AIMIM bastion, the capital city of Telangana is represented by Asaduddin Owaisi in the Lower House of the Parliament. In the 2019 polls, Owaisi defeated the rival BJP candidate Bhagavanth Rao by over 2.8 lakh votes. This time, the BJP has fielded Madhavi Latha, the saffron party's face for its campaign against triple talaq, from this seat. The other parties are yet to announce their candidates from here.
In the last three general elections, three different parties -- Congress in 2009, BRS in 2014 and BJP in 2019 -- have secured a win from this seat. Last time, BJP's national general secretary Bandi Sanjay Kumar defeated BRS' B. Vinod Kumar by over 89,000 votes. Karimnagar remains a key parliamentary constituency in Telangana this time. The same two candidates are pitted against each other once again. The Congress is yet to announce its candidate for this seat.
Secunderabad has backed both the BJP and Congress from time to time. Union Minister and BJP leader G Kishan Reddy won from here in the 2019 polls by over 62,000 votes against BRS' Talasani Sai Kiran Yadav. For the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has retained the state BJP chief from this seat, while the Congress has nominated Danam Nagender, who recently ditched the BRS and joined the grand old party. The BRS will be represented by T Padma Rao Goud.
Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy won this seat on a Congress ticket in the 2019 elections, defeating BRS candidate Rajashekar Reddy Marri by over 10,000 votes. This time the party will be represented by Patnam Suneetha Mahender Reddy, who joined the Congress recently after leaving the BRS. The BJP has fielded Etela Rajender, who was earlier with the BRS and joined the saffron party in 2021.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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