The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Tuesday retained the Warangal Lok Sabha seat by a record margin of over 4.59 lakh votes.
In a one-sided contest, Pasunuri Dayakar of the TRS polled 6,15,403 votes as against 1,56,315 votes of nearest rival Sarve Satyanarayana of the Congress. P. Devaiah of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got 1,30,178 votes.
Dayakar established a lead from the very first round of counting, increasing the lead with every subsequent round. At the end of all 22 rounds of counting, the margin swelled to over 4.59 lakh votes.
Celebrations broke out in TRS camps across the state as party workers burst firecrackers and distributed sweets at party headquarters Telangana Bhavan here.
"A big thanks to Warangal. You've inspired us to work more and better," tweeted K.T. Rama Rao, state minister and son of Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
TRS MP K. Kavitha, the chief minister's daughter, said their responsibility had further increased with this huge victory.
A total of 23 candidates were in the fray, including Congress' former central minister Sarve Satyanarayana.
About 69 percent of the 15 lakh voters cast their votes in Saturday's by-election, necessitated by the resignation of Kadiam Srihari after he was made deputy chief minister.
In the 2014 elections, Srihari won by a massive margin of 3,92,513 votes.
