Hyderabad, November 14, 2025
In a resounding validation of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy's "Praja Palana" governance, Congress candidate V. Naveen Yadav stormed to victory in the Jubilee Hills Assembly bypoll Friday, clinching a staggering 24,000-vote margin that has electrified party ranks and sparked feverish speculation over a 2028 assembly sweep. Yadav, a local realtor and Reddy loyalist, trounced Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) nominee Maganti Sunita Gopinath—widow of the late MLA Maganti Gopinath—by polling 1,12,456 votes against her 88,234, with BJP's L. Deepak Reddy trailing a distant third at 15,678. The win—Congress's second bypoll coup in Telangana after a similar drubbing in Secunderabad Cantonment—signals a seismic shift in the upscale Hyderabad enclave, long a BRS bastion, and positions Reddy's welfare blitz as the rocket fuel for his party's 2028 ambitions.
Counting at the Begumpet strong room wrapped amid jubilant scenes, with Yadav's lead swelling from the first round—garnering 5,678 votes to Gopinath's 3,456—and never dipping thereafter, per Election Commission tallies. Turnout hit a robust 58%, up from 2023's 55%, buoyed by urban youth and women voters drawn to Congress's door-to-door pitches on free bus rides and Mahalakshmi schemes. "This isn't just a bypoll win; it's a referendum on our people's government," Reddy beamed at a victory roadshow from the counting center, flanked by Yadav and TPCC chief Mahesh Kumar Goud. "Jubilee Hills, with its malls and metros, has spoken: Welfare works, and we'll double down—more jobs, more homes, more Indiramma for every Telugu family by 2028."
The bypoll, triggered by Gopinath's death in September, was billed as BRS's sympathy lifeline—a high-stakes test for K. Chandrashekar Rao's ailing Pink Party after its 2023 rout. Gopinath, leveraging her late husband's legacy and KCR's star power, had hoped to reclaim the constituency's "debt trap" narrative against Congress's "unfulfilled promises." Yet, the tide turned decisively: Early trends showed Yadav surging on anti-incumbency against BRS's decade of "misrule," amplified by Congress's aggressive social media blitz and door-to-door enumerations of 2 lakh beneficiaries under the Six Guarantees. BJP, squeezed in the urban sandwich, managed a meagre 10% share, underscoring its struggle to dent the Congress-BRS bipolarity in Hyderabad's glitzy belt.
Reddy, addressing a throng of 5,000 at the Gandhi Bhavan, wove the victory into his 2028 tapestry: "We've turned Jubilee Hills from BRS's fortress to our family's fort. This momentum? It's powered by Rythu Bharosa for farmers, Kalyana Lakshmi for daughters, and now, a Rs 10,000 crore youth skills fund. By 2028, Telangana won't just buzz— it'll boom under Congress." Party insiders buzz with unbridled optimism: The 60% vote share—up from 45% in 2023—mirrors a broader anti-BRS swell, with internal polls eyeing 80-100 seats in the next assembly, per a TPCC strategist. Welfare, Reddy emphasized, is the "secret sauce": Since December 2023, over 1.5 crore women have ridden free buses, 50 lakh farmers pocketed Rythu Bandhu cash, and 2 lakh homes risen under Indiramma—schemes that, despite fiscal hawks' debt warnings (now at Rs 7 lakh crore), have cemented a "pro-poor" image in urban oases like Jubilee Hills.
BRS, licking wounds, cried foul. KTR, in a terse X post, slammed "Congress's moneybags and minority machinations," vowing a "people's fightback" against "betrayal of guarantees." Gopinath, gracious in defeat, conceded: "The people have chosen change; we respect it, but BRS's vision endures." BJP's Bandi Sanjay Kumar, eyeing state expansion, shrugged off the third-place finish as "expected in a Congress-BRS cage match," but urged introspection on urban outreach.
Nationally, the ripple reached Delhi: AICC's Jairam Ramesh tweeted congratulations, hailing it as "Revanth's masterstroke—proof that nyay and guarantees trump dynastic decay." For Telangana's Congress, adrift post-TRS bifurcation, this bypoll is ballast: It quells whispers of Reddy's "lame duck" tag amid farm protests and irrigation rows, refueling a war chest for 2028's 119-seat battle.
As Yadav took the oath amid fireworks at the state secretariat—echoing Reddy's 2023 swearing-in—the air crackled with possibility. Jubilee Hills, with its IT parks and film stars, isn't just a pincode; it's a portent. In Revanth's Telangana, welfare whispers are turning to roars—and 2028 feels within grasp.
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