In a huge victory to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the municipal elections, the party swept the polls capturing power in over 100 out of 120 municipalities and 7 out of 9 municipal corporations.
As TRS party president and minister, K T Rama Rao anticipated, the party’s main opposition, the Congress fared poorly and came in at a distant second with majority only in 3 municipalities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won a municipality each.
The TRS won more than 1,500 seats while the Congress only secured 495 seats. The BJP, which claimed it would emerge as the main opposition after winning four Lok Sabha seats last year, won 223 seats. Interestingly, independent candidates won more seats than the opposition parties in several municipalities. Independents, most of whom were TRS rebels, were elected in 293 wards.
“I thank the people of Telangana for once again reposing in our honourable leader and CM K Chandrasekhar Rao’s leadership,” KTR stated expressing his happiness over the victory.
"Victory after victory since the formation of Telangana in 2014 until now. We won every single election, assembly elections, or parliamentary elections, or panchayat or zilla parishad elections, GHMC elections and now the municipal elections. We have won every single election resoundingly. My deep gratitude to the people of Telangana and to the workers and leadership of TRS who have toiled very hard over the last month and a half to give us this victory,” he added.
As the counting of votes is still underway in some places, all the results are officially expected to be announced by the evening. The State Election Commission (SEC) took up counting of votes at 134 centres.
Over 70 percent of the registered 53.37 lakh voters had cast their votes for the TRS on Wednesday, electing to power 325 corporators for municipal corporations and 2,727 councillors for municipalities. A total of 1,746 candidates were in fray in municipal corporations while 11,099 candidates tested their political fortunes in municipalities.
Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM won 56 seats, and has captured the region of Bhainsa, which was recently rocked by communal violence.
The TRS also dominated the elections to nine municipal corporations. It won 123 seats while BJP finished a distant second by winning 42 seats. Independents won 41 seats while Congress secured 37 seats. TRS candidates were elected unanimously in 77 wards in municipalities and one ward in corporation while three candidates of AIMIM were elected unopposed in three municipal wards.
Most of the municipalities and corporations are going to polls for the first time after they were carved out last year. The newly-elected bodies will elect mayors, chairpersons and deputy chairpersons on January 27.