Jubilee Hills bypoll on Nov 11

Hyderabad: Political activity is set to intensify in the city now as the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday announced the schedule for the bypoll for the Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency.

The EC will be issuing notification for the bypoll on October 13 and from that day the nomination papers can be filed by the candidates. The last date for filing nominations is October 21. The EC officials will take up scrutiny of the nominations on October 22 and the last day for withdrawal of the nomination is October 24. The polling will be held on November 11, and the result will be announced on November 14. The byelection is necessitated because of the death of BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath.

While the two national parties - Congress and the BJP - have not yet announced the candidates, the BRS has already hit the road and also announced the candidature of Maganti Sunitha, wife of Gopinath for the byelection. The Congress party has sent three to four names to the high command for its approval.

The list includes the names of Naveen Yadav and former mayor Bonthu Ram Mohan. The BJP has also formed a committee to select its candidate.

The byelection is going to be a litmus test for the three major political parties in the State. While the ruling party would like to prove that it has improved its support base in the city, the BRS will be keen on maintaining its strength in Greater Hyderabad. While Congress came to power in the state, the BRS had won a majority of the seats in the state capital.

The BJP, which had only one seat (Goshamahal), would also want to show its growing strength in the city. The BRS leaders are targeting the Congress party with ‘Baki Card’.

The party leaders including working president KT Rama Rao have been giving these debt cards to the voters reminding them of the failed promises of the ruling party.

As per the amended voters list, there are 3,99,000 voters in the Jubilee Hills constituency including 2,07,382 male, 1,91,593 female and 25 other category voters.

As per the primary list released on September 2, there were 3,92,669 voters and after revision, 6,976 additional voters were added, and 663 voters were removed.

Now, along with the service voters, there are 3,99,000 voters in the constituency. There will be 139 polling locations and 407 polling stations in the constituency.