12,702 Verdicts: What Telangana’s villages said about congress, BRS and BJP

In December 2025, Telangana’s ruling Congress swept the Rural body local polls, winning 53.7% of gram panchayats. This analysis maps every one of those 12,702 results individually to their assembly constituencies, mandals, and reservation categories, covering 94 rural/semi-urban ACs and 590 mandals. The party inclination of each sarpanch was gathered through district-level reporters on the ground; the reservation category of each seat was sourced from the Telangana State Election Commission. Together, these two data streams make it possible to read the results not just by party aggregate but by geography, community category, and the specific political context of each constituency. BRS held 27.7% panchayats, BJP managed 5.5%, and the remaining went to smaller parties, independents, and rebels. Mapped to assembly constituencies, Congress led in 83 of 94 rural/semi-urban ACs, BRS in 8, BJP in 2, and Others in 1. At the mandal level, Congress led in 445 of 590. The sweep extended well beyond the 62 out of 94 rural/semi-urban assembly seats Congress won in 2023.

The MLA Variable

The single most revealing pattern in the data is the effect of MLA defections. Eight BRS legislators defected to Congress in function if not in law, campaigning under the Congress banner, coordinating with its leadership, deploying workers. The Assembly Speaker did not disqualify them under the anti-defection law, leaving them formally BRS members even as they operated as Congress on the ground. It is this legal grey zone that made reversals possible: the same MLA could walk to Congress for the panchayat elections, walk back to BRS for the municipals, and never technically have left either party. The consequences are written plainly in the data. In the eight constituencies where MLAs crossed over, BRS averaged just 18.6% against Congress’s 61.8%. Where BRS MLAs stayed, the party averaged 38.4%, nearly matching Congress’s 37.7%. A single MLA crossing the floor cost BRS roughly 20 percentage points. Banswada is the starkest case: BRS was left with a 2.2% share of panchayats. The party structure did not fracture; it walked out the door with the MLA.

Patancheru proved the effect works in both directions. Its BRS MLA crossed to Congress in July 2024; Congress won the segment in December 2025. When the same MLA returned to BRS in January 2026 before the municipal polls that followed, BRS swept the urban wards in February 2026. Same constituency, same leader, opposite outcomes across two different elections, the MLA was the only variable that changed. Where MLAs held firm, BRS showed it remains a formidable local force. Harish Rao’s Siddipet returned 80% of panchayats to BRS, reducing Congress to 6.6%. KTR’s Sircilla gave BRS 47% of Panchayats. Jangaon, Narsapur, and Dubbak all showed competitive BRS numbers. The party finished second in 67 of 94 ACs despite having no government at any level and eight of its own legislators campaigning against it.

BJP’s Rural Absence

BJP finished fourth or worse in 79 of 94 rural/semi-urban constituencies, won zero panchayats in 20 ACs and more than half the state’s mandals, and its meaningful presence is confined to two northern Adilabad seats, Mudhole (49.7% panchayats) and Adilabad (35.3% panchayats). The Kamareddy paradox captures the gap between assembly performance and organisational reality: BJP’s sitting MLA finished third in his own constituency with 9.4% panchayats. In south Telangana, BJP is not weakening. It does not exist. Rural Telangana remains a bipolar Congress-BRS contest.

The North-South Divide

The regional split sharpens the picture further. Northern Telangana i.e., old districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, and Medak, accounts for 5,418 panchayats. Congress won 47.5% here, BRS 27.4%, and BJP 9.3%. Southern Telangana i.e., old districts of Warangal, Khammam, Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, and Mahbubnagar, accounts for 7,284 panchayats, where Congress rose to 58.3%, BRS held steady at 27.9%, and BJP collapsed to 2.7%. The pattern is clear: BRS’s vote share is remarkably consistent across both regions, suggesting a baseline of organisational loyalty that does not depend on geography. Congress is stronger in the south, where its assembly dominance in 2023 was most complete. And BJP’s already thin statewide presence is almost entirely a northern phenomenon, driven by sitting MLAs in Adilabad and pockets of Nizamabad and Karimnagar. South of this corridor, the party has no measurable rural footprint. This geographic context matters for reading the caste patterns that follow: tribal seats concentrate in the north, Dalit seats are more evenly spread, and the two geographies produce different competitive dynamics.

Caste and Reservation Patterns

Looking at each party’s performance within reservation categories against its statewide average, reveals a striking Congress-BRS mirror image. Congress overperforms in tribal seats (ST Women +5.8%, ST General +3.6%), likely reflecting post-2023 forest rights and tribal welfare policy. BRS overperforms in Dalit seats (SC General +3.8%, SC Women +3.3%), retaining loyalty built during its decade in power. BJP shows its only notable variance in BC Women seats (+3.8%), reaching 9.4% against its overall 5.5%. The SC base is BRS’s most durable asset and Congress’s most visible vulnerability.

What the Villages Said

Congress’s 2023 wave has deepened rather than receded, reinforced by incumbency and absorbed MLA networks. Whether this is genuine organisational growth or temporary ruling-party advantage will only become clear when Congress is no longer in government. BRS survives as a collection of political fortresses, potent where its leaders held, hollowed out where they left. BJP’s claim to a Telangana growth story is contradicted at every level of this data. And the left parties and independents, CPI in Kothagudem, CPM in Khammam, rebels in Chennur, prove that where a movement has genuine local roots, no wave washes everything away. Telangana’s sarpanchs were elected without party symbols. Almost every village knew exactly which party its candidate belonged to. And every village voted accordingly.

Pradeep Kumar Dontha is a political consultant based in Hyderabad. Vignesh Karthik K.R. is a postdoctoral research affiliate of Indian and Indonesian politics at KITLV-Leiden and research affiliate at King’s India Institute, King’s College London.

Published – March 25, 2026 08:00 am IST