Till late this evening not many people in Telangana hardly knew anything about Katipally Venakata Ramana Reddy, the BJP candidate who won from the Kamareddy constituency. By 7 p.m on Sunday, he became a kind of celebrity as he emerged as the giant killer by defeating BRS President and the outgoing Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) with a comfortable majority of 6,741. He secured 66,652 votes.

Not only that, he has defeated A Revanth Reddy, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee President, who’s tipped to be the Chief Minister, who ended up at third place with 54,916 votes.

What worked for this 49-year-old soft-spoken businessman most is the fact that he is a local candidate, while his two main rivals were from ‘outside’.

Doubting his winning prospects at Gajwel, KCR filed his nomination papers for Kamareddy too. The Congress fielded Revanth, a second constituency for him too, there in a bid to take the bull by its horn in a party’s stronghold.

But Ramana Reddy has different plans. Considered to be an underdog, he played his cards well and meticulously executed his plan. Though he was lagging behind in the earlier rounds, he picked up pace and consistently maintained lead in the final rounds.

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