Hyderabad: Blazing guns fall silent as GHMC Elections drive ends

Hyderabad: The high-decibel campaign by political parties for the December 1 GHMC elections, which saw political heavyweights like BJP national leaders, Union Ministers attending the rallies and TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao's public meeting, ended on Sunday.

Amid fears that low turnout may hamper the winning prospects, the ruling TRS, BJP and Congress are making all-out efforts to woo the voters in a big number. Allurement of voters with money, liquor and costly gifts are also part of the strategy of all parties to win the elections.

On the last day of the campaign, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and TRS working president KT Rama Rao participated in the rallies and roadshows in different parts of the poll-bound Greater Hyderabad and crossed swords. While Amit Shah said BJP wants Hyderabad to get rid of Nizami culture, KTR retorted saying that Shah should know that Mahatma Gandhi had called Hyderabadi culture as Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb.

While the main fight continued to be between the TRS and BJP, TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy and party working president A Revanth Reddy visited the colonies making an all-out bid to improve their position in the GHMC.

The three political parties deputed booth level party committees to every household to explain the importance of exercising their franchise in the crucial civic body elections. The BJP considers this election as a gateway to emerge as a strong political alternative to TRS.

The ruling TRS leaders were sweating it out to retain hold in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and the Congress leadership was struggling hard to revive the party. The AIMIM party was trying hard to retain all divisions in the Muslim-dominated Old City areas.

The TRS and BJP have identified the divisions where the parties were strong enough but registered low turnout in the 2016 GHMC elections. Special teams were deployed to figure out the voters and mobilise them to the polling booths on the polling day on Tuesday. The TRS has strong vote-bank in many divisions in Kukatpally, Qutubullapur, and Serlingpampally assembly segments but last time the turnout was low.

Leaders of all parties said that the voters who are out of station as it is a long weekend were being contacted and transport facilities were made to see that they come back to the city in time to cast their vote. In the two previous elections to GHMC, the total turnout did not cross 46 per cent. After the high drama that was witnessed during the campaign, parties feel that if the turnout was around 50 per cent, the results could throw up lots of surprises.

A sense of panic is clearly visible among the parties and to avoid low polling, the TRS has taken up an awareness camp on why people should exercise their franchise. The BJP is trying to consolidate the Hindu vote-bank in the Old City aiming to win a good number of divisions in the AIMIM bastion.

Party activists admit that distribution of money by political parties in the slum areas had already begun. There have been some incidents where some of the activists were caught distributing money and liquor and it led to some minor skirmishes. All parties allege that their rivals were offering Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000.

It is also alleged that some parties were offering costly liquor and gifts like smart phones and silver and gold coins in certain colonies.