Congress holds 57-year-old record of lowest margin

HYDERABAD: It’s a 57-year-old record which remains unbeaten in the lowest margins of wins. Bakar Ali Mirza of the Congress scraped through a wafer thin majority of 736 votes against his CPI rival S Ramanatham in Warangal Lok Sabha seat in the 1962 general elections. While Mirza was polled 1,13,308 votes, Ramanatham got 1,12,572 votes.


P Manik Reddy of TDP comes a close second to Mirza in terms of scoring one of the lowest margis of victories. He won with a margin of 1,816 votes in the 1984 general elections against his fancied Congress candidate P Shiva Shankar in Medak.

Though the ruling TRS candidates came up trumps with good majorities in the 2014 elections, AP Jithendar Reddy of the party won with a nail-biting 2,590-vote majority over veteran Congress leader S Jaipal Reddy in Mahbubnagar.

Interestingly, Hyderabad MP Asaddudin Owaisi’s father and MIM founder Sultan Salauddin Owaisi had to his credit one of the lowest wins. He emerged victorious with just 3,481 votes separating him and TDP candidate K Prabhakara Reddy in 1984 polls. He, however, contested as an independent then. He polled 2,22,187 votes, while Reddy got 2,18,706 votes.

In Telangana, the least majorities recorded have always been above 10,000 and rarely have gone below 5,000 votes. For example, Nagarkurnool LS seat had never gone below 16,676-vote majority. Nalgonda’s least majority of wins ever was 5,398 votes.