Congress-backed candidates appeared to have walked away with the lion’s share of sarpanch seats, leaving the Opposition gasping.
Published Dec 12, 2025 | 4:24 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 12, 2025 | 4:24 PM
Telangana Congress. (Supplied)
Synopsis: The Congress party claimed to have won a majority of the gram panchayats in the first phase of the local body elections in Telangana. The Congress’s flagship schemes, from free electricity to farmers and the crop loan waiver to the rollout of the six guarantees, appear to have struck a chord with rural voters.
The Congress party claimed to have won a majority of the gram panchayats in the first phase of the local body elections in Telangana held on Thursday, 11 December.
As the counting finally wound down in the early hours of Friday, 12 December, Congress-backed candidates appeared to have walked away with the lion’s share of sarpanch seats, leaving the Opposition gasping. The elections are not party-based.
Of the 3,984 sarpanch seats that went to direct contest, apart from the 2,443 villages where heads were unanimously elected, the Congress claims to have swept 2,383 positions.
The BRS is understood to have managed to retain a respectable but distant second with 1,146 seats, while independents picked up 455. Among them were 14 CPM-backed and at least 16 CPI-backed winners.
The BJP, despite its aggressive pitch in recent months, found itself settling for fewer than 200 seats—far below its own expectations.
The only bulwark against the Congress tide was Siddipet district, the long-standing fortress of former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Outside of this bastion, the ruling Congress claims to have bagged a majority of sarpanch seats in almost every district across the state.
If the results showcased a political wave, polling day demonstrated Telangana’s democratic spirit in full bloom.
Braving a biting winter morning on 11 December, voters poured into booths from as early as 6 am. Voting began at 7 am and went on till 1 pm, with serpentine queues seen across the state.
Women were seen lining up cradling infants in their hands, elderly voters, including the differently-abled, being ferried to stations.
The turnout was a remarkable 84.28 percent. Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri topped the list with 92.88 percent, while Khammam, Nalgonda, and Suryapet also crossed the 90 percent mark. The lowest turnout — though still substantial — was 71.79% in Bhadradri Kothagudem. Of the over 53.5 lakh registered voters, 45,15,141 cast their ballots: 23,15,796 women, 21,99,267 men, and 78 from the ‘others’ category.
What unfolded during the counting was nothing short of a cliffhanger. Polling was peaceful, but when officials began tallying votes at 2 pm on Friday, 12 December, several mandals witnessed contests so razor-thin that recounts became the order of the day. In some villages, victory margins came down to a single vote.
Congress seemed to have scored emphatic victories across a long line-up of districts: Nalgonda, Khammam, Medak, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri, Warangal (Rural), Adilabad, Suryapet, Karimnagar, Kamareddy, Jangaon, Nagarkurnool, Narayanpet, Nizamabad, Nirmal, Peddapalli, Mancherial, Rajanna-Sircilla, Vikarabad, Mulugu, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, and Jagtial.
The Congress wave extended to ward member positions as well. Though final numbers for the nearly 49,000 posts are still being compiled, district-wise patterns indicate that Congress-backed candidates have clinched a commanding majority here as well — suggesting control not just at the top but in the grassroots machinery of panchayat governance.
The Congress’s flagship schemes, from free electricity to farmers and the crop loan waiver to the rollout of the six guarantees, appear to have struck a chord with rural voters.
For the BRS, the results deepen its electoral woes after its debacle in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, raising tough questions about its reconnect strategy. For the BJP, the verdict underscores a widening gulf between its urban pockets of influence and rural electoral performance.
Reacting to the results, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President B Mahesh Kumar Goud said that winning a majority of seats is a reflection of people’s trust in Congress. He said that the Congress won more than 90 percent of the seats in the first phase of the elections to the gram panchayats which vindicated the people’s faith in the Congress-led government in the state.
He said: “The Congress’s model of connecting directly with the people at the grassroots significantly strengthened the party’s presence in rural Telangana.”
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
