TRS leaders hold GHMC responsible for MLC polls debacle

After the MLC poll disaster where Telangana Rashtra Samithi lost the prestigious Hyd-RR-Mahbubnagar Graduates MLC seat to BJP, the TRS and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is reworking his strategy for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls.

The change in TRS supremo had come after Hyderabad TRS leaders listed out the loopholes and lapses that led to poll debacle in a letter to Chief Minister yesterday and also blamed it on the GHMC commissioner Somesh Kumar's 'harsh' methods of property tax collection and delay in issuing notification for job recruitments.

The TRS leaders demanded that KCR formulate a people friendly tax collection policy in the city before scheduling the GHMC elections. Interestingly, most of the signatories of the letter are former GHMC councillors, who recently switched over from the TDP and Congress to TRS who are seemingly worried about their poll prospects.

"The methods adopted by the GHMC commissioner to collect tax and trade licence fees are considered harsh and one of the main reasons for our defeat in the MLC elections,“ said Singireddy Srinivas Reddy, former councillor who joined the TRS recently. He said that the upward revision of property tax and imposition of 100% penalty on defaulters with a retrospective effect of three years did not go down well with the electorate.

KCR is said to have taken a serious note of the issues raised by the former councillors on Friday. He is expected to convene a review meeting in the next week where TRS leaders will deliberate on poll issues.“There will be a thorough introspection to figure out what went wrong in the MLC elections and deliberations on the concerns raised by the party rank and file,“ said deputy chief minister Mahmad Mahmood Ali.

Over 50 former Councillors have joined the TRS and want the GHMC elections to be scheduled latest by October. But, KCR seems to have different plans. Earlier, sources said that he preferred the municipality polls sometime in the middle of next year.

Meanwhile, the TRS government is reportedly preparing an affidavit to be filed in the high court on Monday on the GHMC poll schedule. As it has been decided to increase the number of wards from the present 155 to 200, the government is expected to submit before the court the process to be initiated to effect the delimitation of wards.

“MLC election results will have no impact on GHMC polls," says one more TDP entry into TRS and commercial tax minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav who has a mandate to get TRS through the GHMC polls.