Telangana Chief Minister and PCC president A Revanth Reddy and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi have both blamed the BRS leadership for actively ensuring the victory of BJP candidates by transferring their votes.

While on polling day, many local leaders of the BRS were seen openly canvassing for the BJP, Reddy suggested that the BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao had deliberately put up weak candidates and even ensured the transfer of votes to the extent that the BRS ended up losing deposits in seven of the eight seats that the BJP won in Telangana. He accused BRS leaders like T Harish Rao of turning into suicide squad to damage the Congress.

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The BRS failed to win a single seat in Telangana in this election. The BJP won Medak which was considered the citadel of BRS even after Assembly elections since five of the seven Assembly constituencies were won by the party including chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao from Gajwel.

Accusing the BRS leadership of going out on a limb to support the BJP candidates, Reddy said “ The BRS leaders sacrificed themselves to help the BJP. BRS lost deposits in seven out of eight seats won by the BJP. Harish Rao completely transferred the BRS votes in Siddipet Assembly constituency to ensure the victory of Raghunandan Rao at the cost of the Congress candidate who belonged to the weaker section (Mudiraj community). KCR cheated Venkatrami Reddy (BRS candidate).”

He pointed out that BRS which got 37.5 per cent vote in Assembly came down to 16.5 per cent in the recently concluded LS election while the BJP which had got only 13 per cent vote share in 2023 rose to 35.5 per cent five months later.

“KCR, KTR and Harish pledged the self respect of BRS MLAs to BJP,” accused Reddy. He claimed people were happy with his government since the Congress which had got 39.5 per cent in the Assembly elections, managed to improve its vote share to reach 41 per cent.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi too blamed the BRS for BJP’s good show in Telangana.

“In quite a few places BRS people openly supported the BJP. This has come out. Why they did this we don’t know. As a political strategy, this was very wrong. This is a fact,” said after winning his own seat with a huge margin of more than three lakh votes. Owaisi rued that BRS compromised with the BJP. “I was very surprised that this happened in many places in Telangana, they should not have compromised… it is an open secret, that should not have happened. In a political journey you are in power, you lose power, you lose elections but you continue your struggle,” he said.