First term (1999–2004)

Sridhar Babu won on the Congress ticket from Manthani in the 1999 elections, though his Congress party was relegated to sitting in the opposition. He defeated his nearest rival Chandrupatla Ram Reddy by a margin of over 15,000 votes.^[9]

Second term (2004–2009)

By the time Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy undertook his padayatra in 2003, Sridhar Babu was the Karimnagar district party president.^[10] In the 2004 elections, in which the Congress Party gained power, he defeated the TDP candidate, Somarapu Satyanarayana, by a margin of 42,560 votes.^[11] He became a Government Whip in the 12th Telangana .^[12]

Third term (2009–2014)

He was re-elected in the 2009 Assembly Elections defeating Putta Madhu of the erstwhile Praja Rajyam Party by a margin of over 13,000 votes.^[13] He was the only Congress MLA to be re-elected in 2009 from Karimnagar district, amidst a strong showing from an alliance of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Telugu Desam Party.

Babu was appointed a member of Y. S. Reddy's cabinet in May 2009^[8] as minister for Higher Education and NRI affairs. After serving the ministry for 1.5 years he moved to the Civil Supplies and Legislative affairs ministry in Kiran Kumar Reddy's cabinet. He resigned from the cabinet on 2 January 2014 after Reddy divested him of his Legislative Affairs portfolio when the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, which concerns the creation of a separate Telangana state, was being discussed in the Assembly.^[14]

Fourth term (2018–2023)

Sridhar Babu won a hard-fought election in 2018,^[15] and won with a majority of 16,230 votes against his TRS rival.^[16] The Telangana CM KCR had called for an early election in September 2018 by dissolving the assembly a good 8 months before its tenure throwing the opposition parties into a tizzy.^[17] The Congress party had high hopes of dethroning the ruling TRS and allied itself with the TDP, TJS and CPI to forge a grand alliance. However, the TRS rode back to power and Sridhar Babu was one of the only 19 MLAs who won on the Congress party ticket. During this time he was appointed in many key roles by AICC.

Fifth term (2023-)

The Congress party launched a comprehensive campaign and AICC leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi campaigned in Telangana and Smt Sonia Gandhi addressed a mega rally in the run upto the Telangana election where she announced 6 guarantees.^[18] Basis the 6 guarantees, the party prepared a robust Manifesto which was spearheaded by Sridhar babu ^[19] Sridhar Babu contesting for the 6th time as MLA from Manthani, and as only one of the 5 sitting MLAs from the Congress party in Telangana ran a well planned election campaign focusing on the promises made by the Congress party in its manifesto and the 6 guarantees announced to achieve a Samajika Telangana (Social Telangana)-which was based on Social justice and Inclusive politics, to counter the Bangaru Telangana ( Golden Telangana) claim by BRS. In the end, he won with a handsome margin of 31380 votes^[20] inflicting a defeat on Putta Madhukar of the ruling BRS for the third time. The state witnessed a stunning defeat of the ruling BRS which had to contend only with 39 seats, and the Congress party romped home with a simple majority of 64 seats.^[21]

Election statistics