The following article was written for Commune Mag. Pasting it here for reference:
With the dust settling in for the GHMC elections and polling numbers coming in, the true scale of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory is further baffling many analysts. The GHMC limits are split into 6 zones – and the BJP is the only party to have won at least 1 seat in each of the 6 zones. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) did not win a single seat in the Charminar zone. The TRS won 33 out of the 55 seats from just two zones – Kukatpally and Serlingampally; and remaining 22 are spread over the other 3 zones.
However, there is one more statistic that is very devastating for the TRS party. The GHMC area covers 24 MLA constituencies. The TRS did not win a single ward in a whopping 13 of these constituencies. In contrast, the BJP won at least 1 ward in 18 of these constituencies. This is a huge leap from its disastrous performance in both the 2009 and 2016 GHMC elections.
Though the above graphic is in Telugu (sourced from Ee Nadu), it is easy to get an overview based on the colours and symbols of the party. The numbers represent the wards won by that party in each assembly constituency. There is yet another interesting statistic that needs to be observed.
Except for the Jubilee Hills constituency, the TRS did not win a single ward seat in any of the 10 constituencies that the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won wards in! Though the TRS and MIM have been telling that they are not in alliance, these numbers tell a very different story!
This loss for the TRS is largely due to the bungling of many local issues. Fresh in the memory of people is the tardy response of the state government to the unprecedented Hyderabad floods that struck the city recently. The Chief Minister did not even bother to visit the affected areas. A cash incentive of ₹10,000 was announced but the distribution was so tardy and riddled with so much controversy that nothing useful came out of the whole exercise. The general inaccessibility of many corporators (43 of sitting corporators lost in this elections), their continuing influence over land grabbing and corruption (even the Mayor was entangled in serious allegations of land grabbing) contributed a lot to this defeat.
In addition to these local factors, there was also widespread discussion on certain state level factors – such as the tightening grip of the family rule in Telangana; the shoddy response to the COVID testing right from the beginning of the crisis, and the general arrogance of the TRS leadership in dealing with questions and criticism.
The BJP was smart enough to deftly handle both the local and state level issues in this campaign. Even though they had only 10 days to decide on the candidates and strategies – the BJP’s aggressive campaign hit the right chords at many places. Whilst highlighting the local issues and potential solutions to them, the BJP also played well at highlighting the arrogance of the TRS leadership (primarily the family of K. Chandrasekhara Rao!). The entire state leadership was focused only on this election – and this is the first time they had multiple star campaigners because of which the party was able to cover larger area with greater impact.
The party of course benefitted from the experience of its national leadership too. With Shri Bhupender Yadav overseeing the election, it was apparent how serious the central leadership was taking this election. Campaigns by Amit Shah, J.P.Nadda, Yogi Adityanath, Smriti Irani, Tejasvi Surya, etc bolstered the cadre like never before.
The TRS didn’t back down a bit on this front – the entire state cabinet was involved in the campaigning. Nearly all the 100 MLAs of the TRS were also involved in the campaigning. KCR’s son KT Rama Rao was in charge of the whole exercise – and therefore this loss stings more than ever. Slowly and surely, the BJP has occupied the principal opposition space in Telangana now. It remains to be seen how the party will take this position forward.
By the way, there has been one more casualty because of this election. The state Congress President, Uttam Kumar Reddy, has finally resigned after the disastrous performance of the party. Within hours of him resigning, multiple groups within the party have begun lobbying for the post based on caste compositions. Until the Congress party comes out of this ridiculous groupism and age-old strategies, there is no hope left of revival of that party!
This is also the first time that the TRS has lost a position of power after the formation of the Telangana state in 2014. With TRS losing the public mandate in GHMC, the focus has now shifted towards electing the Mayor. The TRS needed 67 seats to win the Mayor seat on its own. They now have no option but to ally with the MIM to retain the Mayor seat in GHMC.
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