BJP national general secretary Bandi Sanjay Kumar celebrates after winning the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat for the second consecutive time, on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement
BJP candidate Bandi Sanjay Kumar repeated his 2019 Lok Sabha election performance to bag the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat for the second consecutive term after unsuccessfully contesting the Assembly elections as BJP candidate in 2018 and 2023.
The 52-year-old national general secretary of the BJP secured the second straight win from the prestigious Karimnagar seat, retaining the saffron party’s hold on north Telangana’s political nerve centre. He trounced V. Rajender Rao of the Congress with a huge margin of 2.25 lakh votes.
Mr. Sanjay emerged triumphant by garnering 5,85,116 votes (about 45%) of the total polled votes of 13,13,331.
Mr. Rajender Rao and BRS candidate B. Vinod Kumar secured 3,59,907 and 2,82,163 votes respectively. Several independent candidates of the total 28 lost their security deposits. NOTA polled 5,438 votes.
The BRS suffered a huge setback as it drew a blank in the Lok Sabha elections in the State and the defeat, mainly in Karimnagar, considered as its traditional bastion, dealt a severe blow to the beleaguered main Opposition party.
Despite its impressive performance in the 2023 Assembly elections winning four of the total seven Assembly segments in the Karimnagar Parliamentary constituency limits, the ruling Congress failed to wrest the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat from the BJP.
Mr Sanjay surpassed the previous highest victory margin of the former MP of the BRS (then TRS) Vinod Kumar of 2.05 lakh votes in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Mr Vinod, who contested as BRS candidate in 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Karimnagar, finished third in the battle of ballots.
Speaking to the media after receiving his winning certificate, a jubilant Mr. Sanjay said, “The people of Karimnagar constituency re-elected me with a thumping majority by reposing their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. They gave me a bigger majority (2.25 lakh) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections than in the 2019 election (89,508 majority). I dedicate this victory to the BJP cadre who tirelessly and strived for the party’s triumph,” he said, adding that the people of Karimnagar foiled the ‘conspiracies’ of the Congress and the BRS to defeat him.
“I will strive with renewed commitment for the development of Karimnagar Parliamentary constituency under the leadership of Mr. Modi,” he said amid big applause from the party cadre.
