The BJP and Congress shared the spoils equally in Telangana winning eight seats each at the cost of the BRS failing to win a single seat in the state and coming third in 14 of the 17 seats including in Greater Hyderabad where they had won most Assembly seats only six months back.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, however, was left embarrassed as the BJP won his home constituency Mahabubnagar after a neck-and-neck fight and easily secured the Malkajgiri seat which he had represented till December last year.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi retained his seat Hyderabad with a huge margin of over three lakh votes defeating BJP’s K Madhavi Latha quite convincingly.

Congress won Khammam, Nalgonda, Peddapalli, Bhuvanagiri, Mahabubabad, Warangal, Zaheerabad, and Nagarkurnool seats while the BJP retained Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, and Secunderabad constituencies and won Malkajgiri, Chevella, Mahabubnagar and Medak.

The North-South divide in the state was very clear with the BJP dominating the North, including the BRS strongholds and Greater Hyderabad area while the South went to Congress. N Sri Ganesh of Congress won the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly by-election wresting the seat from the BRS. It is the only MLA seat for Congress from Greater Hyderabad.

The BRS came second only in two seats, Khammam and Mahabubabad, and in Medak which was its citadel, the party came third after failing to get a lead of even 20,000 from Siddipet where T Harish had won the election by more than 80,000 votes just last year. In Medak, the BRS has five MLAs including former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao who had won from Gajwel.

Party’s working president KT Rama Rao had accused Congress of putting up weak candidates like in Karimnagar that too just a few days before the elections but it was its veteran leader B Vinod who came in third.

Nevertheless, accepting the decimation of his party, the BRS leader said, “Today’s electoral setback is certainly very disappointing. But we will continue to toil and will rise from the ashes again like a Phoenix.”

Most of the defectors such as G Ranjith Reddy and Danam Nagender, who joined Congress, and BB Patil, who went to BJP from BRS also lost except Kavya Kadiyam of Congress who won the Warangal seat. the BJP, which had won only eight seats in Assembly elections, banked on Modi’s magic since most of the sitting MPs except G Kishen Reddy also had contested Assembly elections but lost.