Ganesh Puthur
Political pundits and journalists had raised their eyebrows when Bharatiya Janata Party ran a heavy voltage campaign for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election. Senior BJP leaders like Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union ministers, Party president J.P Nadda, U.P CM Yogi Adithyanath, MPs, Yuva Morcha national President Tejaswi Surya and others were roped in for such an unprecedented election campaign.
There was curiosity among political enthusiasts regarding the reason behind BJP taking a corporation election too seriously (that too not a rich body like BMC). It seems that BJP’s strategies have paid off since the party is leading in 48 seats out of 150 seats in GHMC. In the previous GHMC elections, BJP could win just 4 seats while TRS won 99 seats and MIM captured the entire old Hyderabad area by leading in 43 seats. After their spectacular victory in Dubbaka by-elections, BJP truly has a moment to rejoice since such a victory at the home turf of Owaisi becomes a matter of great pride to them. With the Nagarjunasagar by-elections nearing, GHMC result empowers BJP to give a tough fight to the ruling TRS.
BJP won only one assembly constituency out of 119 in 2018 state elections. But the party did well in 2019 Lok Sabha elections by winning 4 out of the 17 seats while the state’s main opposition party back then, Congress, could win only 3 seats. But now, BJP has replaced Congress party as the principal opposition party in Telangana.
GHMC election results will energise BJP workers in Telangana and the other states of the south. Tamil Nadu and Kerala are gearing up for assembly elections in 2021, while BJP has expansion plans for Andhra Pradesh too. BJP’s expanding footprints in the south have rattled evangelical pastors and Islamists alike since they had always branded the saffron party as a ‘North Indian’ organisation. BJP’s power to arise from absolutely nothing needs to be mentioned. While the top BJP leaders came to Hyderabad for campaigning, not even a single higher-level Congress leader campaigned for their candidates.
On the day of the election, attempts were made to cast bogus votes in various parts of the city and many watchdogs have indicated TRS paying bribe to voters to vote for the ‘car’ symbol (TRS symbol). BJP has increased its tally by 10 times even when TRS misused their entire state machinery for GHMC polls. Academic intellectuals were busy targeting BJP for its announcement to rename Hyderabad as ‘Bhagyanagar’, once they win Telangana elections. It seems that the common people of Telangana want liberation from the ‘invader’s legacy’, hence they came out in large numbers to vote for BJP.
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