Greater Hyderabad Corporation Polls Headed For Hung Verdict; BJP’s Stellar Show Is A Bitter Pill For TRS

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is headed for a hung verdict with the ruling Telangana Rashtriya Samithi (TRS) set to emerge the single largest party in the 150-member council but with its image badly dented.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which went all out to try and win the elections, came up with a stellar performance emerging as the second-largest party.

Out of the 146 seats for which results were known at 8.00 pm, the TRS had bagged 56 wards with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) getting 46 wards, while the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) finishing third with 42 wards and Congress two.

The Telangana Election Commission website showed results for 124 seats with the TRS getting 48, AIMIM 40, BJP 34 and Congress two.

The results are a huge setback for the ruling party in Telangana as it had 99 wards in the outgoing council, while the AIMIM 44, the BJP four, Congress two and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) one.

Unconfirmed reports said the TRS was likely to end up with 56 wards, the BJP 49 and AIMIM 43.

The TRS ending up well short of a majority is the second setback for it within a month after having lost the Assembly byelections to Dubakka last month to the BJP.

The AIMIM will be settling for a lower number of seats, though its losses are not as that of TRS.

During the run-up to the elections, the TRS and its leaders, particularly Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his son K T Rama Rao, had declared that the party would win nothing less than 100 seats.

For the BJP, the huge gains it has made in the GHMC polls come on the heels of its leadership bringing its stalwarts from Union Home Minister Amit Shah to party president J P Nadda to Textile Minister Smriti Irani to Bengaluru’s young MP Tejasvi Surya.

A majority of the gains for the BJP came from Secunderabad (10 wards) and LB Nagar (16 wards). In Secunderabad, where 21 wards were at stake, its performance was at par with TRS which too got 10 wards with AIMIM getting the other one.

In LB Nagar, the BJP emerged as the principal gainer winning 14 of the 23 wards. In the bitterly fought Charminar area, the BJP got 3 wards, while AIMIM derived its maximum of 27 seats from there. Results from six more wards from the area is awaited.

AIMIM’s other principal gain came from Khairatabad, where it won 13 of the 27 wards with BJP and TRS getting six each.

Earlier when the postal ballots were taken up for voting, the BJP sprung a surprise taking leads in over 80 wards.

The BJP had made the fight for control of GHMC a prestigious one as it sees itself emerging as the principal opposition party in the State with the Congress and TDP being totally marginalised. The AIMIM is mostly a party confined to Muslim-majority areas.

The BJP is seeing a rise in fortunes after Bandi Sanjay was made the party’s Telangana unit president and he has been able to whip the cadre into action.