Who is Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy? BJP's giants-slayer who defeated Telangana's chief minister

Assembly Elections 2023: In an expected turn of events in the Kamareddy assembly constituency of Telangana, BJP’s Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy handed defeat to heavyweights K Chandrashekar Rao of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and A Revanth Reddy, who is state Congress chief.

#WATCH | Telangana: On defeating Incumbent CM K. Chandrashekar Rao and State Congress chief Revanth Reddy from Kamareddy seat, BJP leader Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy says "I took both of them as normal candidates. People have supported me a lot and this is the reason I won… pic.twitter.com/6SH6SCIVRv

— ANI (@ANI) December 3, 2023

Katipally who is also known as KVR won by the margin of 6741 votes. He received a total of 66652 votes while the sitting Chief Minister KCR received 59911 votes followed by state Congress chief, Anumula Revanth Reddy got 54916 votes. 

#TelanganaElections2023 | BJP candidate from Kamareddy, Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy wins by a margin of 6,741, garnering a total of 66,652 votes.

He defeated incumbent CM K Chandrashekar Rao and State Congress chief Revanth Reddy from here. pic.twitter.com/Jah7tpy9Dc

— ANI (@ANI) December 3, 2023

What is background of Venkata Ramana Reddy (KVR)?

The 53-year-old, Venkata Ramana Reddy is a businessman by profession and a Class 12 pass-out. According to the election declaration, his total stated assets are Rs 49.7 crore, of which Rs 2.2 crore are moveable assets and Rs 47.5 crore are immovable assets. Of his stated total income of Rs 9.8 lakh, Rs 4.9 lakh comes from his own sources. Liabilities incurred by Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy total Rs 58.3 lakh. A total number of 11 criminal cases have been filed against him.

Verdict of Assembly Polls 2018

With 42% of the vote, Gampa Govardhan of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now BRS) kept his seat as Kamareddy's MLA in the 2018 assembly elections. He defeated Muhammad Ali Shabbir of the Congress by a 2% margin.

Kamareddy Assembly seat's demography

The 2008 report by the Delimitation Commission estimates that the population of the Kamareddy Assembly seat is made up of 4.67% Scheduled Tribes and 14.73% Scheduled Castes. According to the Census of India 2011, the district in which this constituency is located is predicted to have a literacy rate of 48.49 percent.

There were 2,45,822 eligible voters in the constituency for the Telangana Assembly elections of 2023; 1,18,718 of them were men, 1,27,080 were women, and 24 registered voters identified as third gender.