First Bihar, now Hyderabad: A new political blueprint featuring BJP, AIMIM to disarm regional satraps?
Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 5
The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) may have emerged as the single-largest party in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls but it is the BJP which stole the show, winning as many as 48 wards in the closely-contested local bodies elections.
And though the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) trailed the BJP to land the third spot, it emerged as the kingmaker in the highly-polarised polls with observers sensing a new political blueprint featuring the BJP and the AIMIM in Muslim-dominated areas to take on regional satraps.
The BJP election machine managed to turn the local bodies’ election into a national event replete with saffron verbosity and star campaigners.
Senior BJP leaders, including Home Minister Amit Shah, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP president JP Nadda and BYJM president Tejasvi Surya, landed to lend the campaign true BJP colours.
Notably, Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, for the first time, won an unprecedented five seats in the Seemanchal region in Bihar, emerging as one of the main reasons for RLD-led alliance suffering losses and the JD-U-BJP alliance forming the government in the highly polarised state elections.
In Hyderabad, while AIMIM held to its own, the BJP’s gains came from the TRS which came down substantially from what it won in the 2016 elections.
Incidentally, the AIMIM which holds sway in Muslim-dominated parts of Hyderabad, had also fielded five Hindu candidates, according to reports.
The Dubakka and now the GHMC, which covers as my as 24 Assembly Constituencies, has given the BJP much to hope in Telangana and also neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where the party fared rather poorly in the last elections.
Considered a bastion of the KCR family, Dubakka is close to Gajwel, which is represented by Chief Minister KCR, Sircilla, his son KT Rama Rao’s constituency, and Siddipet, his nephew T Harish Rao’s seat.
