ANI

Hyderabad, Jun 2: The ruling Congress and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) made impressive gains while the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) faced a setback on Sunday in the by-elections to four Lok Sabha and 18 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh.

The TRS managed to win only seven out of the 16 assembly seats it had vacated.

The jolt to the sub-regional party came in the form of drastic fall in majority for its supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao who retained his Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat with a slender margin of 15,289 votes.

He had won the seat with a huge margin of over two lakh votes in the 2006 election. The ruling Congress wrested Adilabad Lok Sabha seat from the TRS, while TDP was leading in Warangal as per the latest available trends. The TRS, however, retained Hanamkonda parliamentary constituency.

The party's floor leader in the assembly K Vijayarama Rao lost to TDP's K Srihari at Station Ghanpur in Warangal, which is considered the nerve centre of Telangana movement.

Another TRS nominee A Chandrasekhar lost his deposit in Vikarabad, where Congress candidate emerged victorious. The TDP, which was routed in the 2004 General Elections, got a fresh lease of life with its candidates putting up impressive performance.

According to the trends available, the TDP is set to win five assembly seats and Warangal Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress has also made significant gains and is all set to bag six assembly and Adilabad Lok Sabha seat.