To attribute the Congress victory merely to electoral malpractices is delusional. A host of factors worked in its favour: the relative strength of its candidate compared to the BRS nominee, the inherent advantages of being in power, massive spending and the unstinted support of the Majlis.
Published Nov 16, 2025 | 4:12 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 16, 2025 | 4:12 PM
In the nearly two years since the Congress has been in power in the state, the BRS has chosen to fight most of its battles on social media rather than on the ground.
Synopsis: Results of many byelections in the past have shown that they often have little bearing on general elections. Just as the Congress used every possible method to win Jubilee Hills, the BRS did exactly the same when it was in power. At a macro level, the Jubilee Hills defeat will surely place the BRS on the backfoot and is bound to raise questions about the party’s stability, particularly with an ageing KCR having been politically inactive for the last two years.
It was a much-needed jolt for the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS), the main Opposition party in Telangana.
The shock defeat in the Jubilee Hills byelection, more so by a margin of 25,000 votes, will surely shake the top leadership out of its hallucinations and into the harsh realities of politics: that the party must do far more, beyond mere social media presence, to win back public confidence.
While no byelection result, now or in the past, is necessarily an endorsement of the party in power, there are still quite a few lessons here for the BRS.
At the core is the urgent need to reorganise and strengthen the party’s structure, an aspect former Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) ignored during his entire 10 years in power.
Even during the statehood movement (2000–2014), it was the people who carried the struggle on their shoulders while the party lacked any meaningful structure. It is an issue Working President KT Rama Rao (KTR) has also failed to address, even after the 2023 Assembly election defeat.
In the nearly two years since the Congress has been in power in the state, the BRS has chosen to fight most of its battles on social media rather than on the ground.
KTR’s derisive language in public discourse is also not going down well with the people, though he does not seem to realise it. Insider accounts point to a dip in morale among the cadres since the defeat, while district-level leaders are dispirited.
Electoral battles are won on the ground through a solid network of cadre and organisational muscle, not on social media and in “war rooms.”
The party was aggressive online in the run up to the election but caved in once the Congress launched a massive on-ground offensive, deploying ministers and MLAs in full force.
On polling day, BRS agents were said to have been absent at many booths, a sign of structural weaknesses.
To attribute the Congress victory merely to electoral malpractices is delusional. A host of factors worked in its favour: the relative strength of its candidate compared to the BRS nominee, the inherent advantages of being in power, massive spending (with the Congress candidate reportedly paying a minimum of ₹2,500 to a maximum of ₹5,000 per voter, while the BRS offered ₹1,000), and the unstinted support of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).
If the Majlis played the role of a “chota RSS” in Bihar—as described by local media—it was the perfect “chota Congress” in Jubilee Hills, ensuring a good turnout of Muslims who voted for the ruling party.
For the BRS, there is some solace in the fact that it polled 38 percent of the vote, significantly higher than the roughly 15 percent it managed in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, when Union Minister Kishan Reddy won from Secunderabad. Jubilee Hills is part of that constituency.
The usual fear among voters that defeating a ruling party in a byelection may affect development also played a part. Jubilee Hills has a sizeable slum population, and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy went on record saying that ration cards and free electricity would stop if his party lost.
Inasmuch as the result is a lesson for the BRS, Revanth Reddy is not naive enough to believe that all is well simply because of the Jubilee Hills victory.
The win will, no doubt, consolidate his position in both government and party, and possibly push the high command to grant him more freedom than it has so far. He is also likely to have a greater say in the expected Cabinet reshuffle.
But that is the easy part. The more difficult task lies in finding ways to address the growing anti-establishment mood in towns and villages, primarily on account of non-implementation of electoral promises. The Jubilee Hills result cannot camouflage this.
Even so, he is likely to press ahead with polls to local bodies sooner rather than later. It is more than possible that he will advise at least a couple of the 10 BRS legislators who defected to the Congress to resign and face byelections.
The Supreme Court has already directed the Telangana Speaker to decide on the disqualification petitions against them within a specific time frame.
These byelections are expected to be timed alongside the Assembly elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other states in March–April next year.
To all those gloating over the Jubilee Hills result, a quick look at history is not a bad idea. Results of many byelections in the past have shown that they often have little bearing on general elections.
Just as the Congress used every possible method to win Jubilee Hills, the BRS did exactly the same when it was in power. It deployed almost the entire Cabinet and the money bags in Munugode constituency in Nalgonda district during the 2022 byelection.
The party won by a margin of 4.5 percent, only to be defeated by 17 percent in the 2023 general elections, losing power after 10 years. Notably, the loser in 2022 and the winner in 2023 was the same person: Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.
In neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate won the 2017 Nandyal byelection by a margin of 15 percent while the TDP was in power.
The then Opposition leader YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had camped for weeks in Nandyal, and all hailed the “strategist” in the then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
But in the general elections two years later, the same candidate lost by 17 percent. Naidu’s party was decimated while Jagan stormed to power.
What analysts and others are missing is that the Jubilee Hills election was a high-stakes contest for Revanth Reddy. A loss here would have weakened him considerably in the eyes of central and state leaders.
Hence, he put up a no-holds-barred fight, with guesstimates putting the ruling party’s spend close to ₹200 crore.
This, because the Congress had started suffering reverses within months after its Assembly victory. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the party’s candidate in Mahboobnagar polled six percent less than the Assembly tally from Revanth Reddy’s Kodangal segment and lost narrowly, by less than one percent.
The party also lost Malkajgiri, which Revanth Reddy represented in the previous Lok Sabha. It similarly tasted defeat in the Legislative Council elections from Mahboobnagar and from the Karimnagar–Nizamabad seat.
At a macro level, the defeat in Jubilee Hills will surely place the BRS on the backfoot. Its disappointing performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, followed by this loss, is bound to raise questions about the party’s stability, particularly with an ageing KCR having been politically inactive for the last two years.
Whether this opens the door to a leadership tussle is the key question, though party leaders believe that KTR and former minister T Harish Rao will remain a team at least until the next elections, especially with KCR’s daughter, Kavitha, having already parted ways.
The one party that suffered a massive loss of face is the Bharatiya Janata Party. Its candidate failed even to retain his deposit, exposing the hollowness of its leaders’ claims that the BJP is emerging as the true alternative to the Congress.
But the BJP is a different political animal altogether. It is bound to exert pressure in multiple ways to ensure the BRS does not grow strong enough to remain an independent force.
For long, the saffron party’s agenda has been clear. In state after state, it has moved to politically finish regional parties that are not on its side, the latest case being the RJD in Bihar, and before that, the Thackerays in Maharashtra.
For the BRS, therefore, it is a twin battle: fighting the Congress while protecting itself from the preying jaws of the BJP.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
