BJP would have won more than 100 wards if there was more time for campaigning in the recently-concluded Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections and the party is ready to cooperate with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government on development, the party's state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar said on Saturday. Kumar, who held a meeting with the newly-elected BJP corporators along with other BJP leaders, claimed that his party would have won at least 20 seats more if the TRS, election authorities, police and other officials acted impartially.
"If there was more time for campaigning, we would definitely have won over 100 seats," Kumar, a Lok Sabha member, told reporters in Hyderabad. The BJP has bagged 48 wards in the 150-ward GHMC, a sharp rise from the four it had won in the last GHMC elections in 2016. The ruling TRS secured 55 wards, a major dip from the 99 wards in 2016.
Perturbed over the BJP's victory in the recent bye-poll to Dubbak Assembly constituency, TRS president and CM K Chandrasekhar Rao conducted the city polls in a hurry, without taking into consideration people's problems (following recent heavy rains), as Rao felt that BJP would emerge stronger if more time is available for the election, Kumar alleged. BJP is ready to cooperate with the TRS government on development, he said.
The TRS should give up its "appeasement policies", he said. Kumar said all the BJP candidates who won in the GHMC polls would soon visit the Bhagyalakshmi temple at the Charminar. The temple made it to the news during the GHMC election campaign.
Kumar had visited the shrine to take an oath in the name of the goddess to assert that he did not write any letter to the Election Commission urging that the distribution of financial assistance to those affected by rains and flood be stopped. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also visited the temple and offered prayers.
Slamming Asaduddin Owaisi, Kumar alleged that the AIMIM president could not condemn the action of an AIMIM MLA in Bihar who wanted to avoid using "Hindustan" (while taking oath as MLA).
Claiming that the AIMIM was largely confined to the old city, Kumar asked why the party did not contest in all the wards of GHMC.
Read: