HYDERABAD: The victory of TDP candidate Dandamudi Venkata Samrajyam in the casual election held for the 117 - KPHB Colony ward of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has come as some sort of comfort for the party at a time when it is swamped by the gloom of forfeiting its traditional stronghold of Banswada Assembly seat which the TRS had won in the byelection.Samrajyam defeated her nearest rival Harish Chandra Reddy Pannala of Congress by a margin of 2,167 votes. Though the Kukatpally ward election result cannot compensate the sacrifice that the TDP had made by not contesting the Banswada byelection, it has, however, made the party president steel his resolve to fight all elections in the future regardless of where they are held and not repeat the mistake that he had done - leaving Banswada uncontested.After the victory of the TDP candidate in the Kukatpally ward election, N Chandrababu Naidu, while congratulating her, said the TRS campaign against the TDP that it had steered clear of the Banswada byelection only to help the Congress nominee get security deposit back, had hurt him.“I want to make one thing clear. Under no circumstances, the TDP would have any understanding with the Congress,” Naidu said, addressing the party workers. He said sacrificing Banswada seat was not easy for the TDP since it was its traditional stronghold.“Since 1983, we did not lose the election there except in 2004 when we lost to the Congress.This time, when the Telangana leaders of our party approached and wanted me to give a miss to the byelection in deference to the Telangana sentiment, I told them to go ahead. Now the TRS, without appreciating our stand on Telangana was trying to sling mud that we did not take part in the election because we were afraid of losing it.“We are not afraid of fighting any election. We will fight all elections in future,” he said. The outcome of Banswada election has come more or less as denouement for the TDP that TRS is not such a great force as was being made out in Telangana districts. According to sources, the party believes that its vote bank had remained in tact and that it did not make a proper assessment of it. That the Congress candidate could get as many as 33,000 votes was proof enough that the Telangana movement and the TRS were not synonymous, the party leaders feel
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