The BJP’s push in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls has paid off partially for the party eyeing the Telangana Assembly election due in 2023. It has ended the single-party dominance of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
The BJP’s performance in the GHMC polls has worked well for its rival Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM making the TRS dependent on its ally. The AIMIM is an ally of the TRS but in the last GHMC polls, KCR’s party did not need its ally to govern the Hyderabad municipal body.
At the last count of votes polled in the GHMC election, the TRS looked set to win 60 seats — six short of the majority mark in the 150-member municipal corporation. In 2015, the TRS had won 99, while the AIMIM secured 44 seats in the GHMC. The AIMIM looks set to win around 45 this time around.