Karimnagar Election Result 2023: BRS' Gangula Kamalakar set to defeat BJP's firebrand Bandi Sanjay

Bharat Rashtra Samithi's (BRS) Gangula Kamalakar has widened the lead against BJP's Bandi Sanjay and may retain the seat for the party. Bandi Sanjay, BJP's firebrand leader and former state party chief, is up against Kamalakar, and Congress' Purumalla Srinivas. The Karimnagar assembly seat is part of the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency, which is with the BJP.  After 22 of 25 rounds of counting, Kamalakar was ahead of Bandi Sanjay by over 7,580 votes. 

Also Read: Election Result 2023 Live: Counting of votes begins in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh

BJP's Bandi Sanjay is the sitting MP from the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat. Sanjay, under whose leadership the saffron party expanded its wings in the state, was removed as party chief in July, just months before the assembly polls. 

This was the third time Sanjay squared off with BRS leader Gangula Kamalakar. In 2014, the BJP leader lost the race as he could garner just 52,455 votes with nearly 28 per cent vote share while Kamalakar 77,209 votes with 40.92 vote share. The Congress, too, was not far behind the BJP as the grand old party got 51,339 votes with 27.21 per cent vote share. 

In the next election held in 2018, Kamalakar again held the fort with almost the same percentage of votes (40.71) while Sanjay's vote share went up by 5 per cent to 33.18 per cent. The Congress witnessed a decline in its vote share by nearly 8 per cent to 19.86 per cent. This time, Congress has fielded Purumalla Srinivas.    

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Bandi Sanjay wrested the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat from the ruling BRS. He defeated VRS leader Boianapalli Vinod Kumar by nearly 90,000 votes. In this election, the BJP's vote share grew by a whopping 24.34 per cent to 43.42 per cent against BRS, whose share declined by nine per cent to 35.62. Congress leader Ponnam Prabhakar could garner nearly 16 per cent votes. 

India Today-Axis My India exit poll had predicted a massive win for the Congress in the assembly election. As per the projections, the grand old party was predicted to win 63-73 of 119 seats. A party needs 60 seats to form the government in Telanaga's 119-member House. As per the results so far, Congress is likely to form the government in Telangana with 60-plus seats.