HYDERABAD: The landslide victory of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections was the high point for the ruling party in Telangana during 2016.
For a party which did not contest in 2009 GHMC polls and also did not fare well in the 2014 General Elections in the metropolitan area comprising four Lok Sabha and 16 Assembly constituencies, bagging 99 out of the 150 seats in the civic body had been a significant achievement.
Not just GHMC, the winning streak of the TRS continued even in the elections to the Warangal and Khammam municipal corporations and also in the by-election to the Palair Assembly Constituency where Minister for Roads and Buildings Tummala Nageswara Rao won with a margin 45,681 votes over Congress candidate R Sucharita Reddy.
Decimated Opposition
Besides registering electoral gains, the TRS had been successful in luring members of the Opposition parties in the State to join its fold. In fact, ever since the TRS came to power two-and-a-half years ago, it had been a down slide for the Congress party and also for the the Telugu Desam and YSRCP parties as far as the number of their elected representatives were concerned. In the last two years, 12 out of the 15 TDP legislators and 9 out of the 21 Congress MLAs crossed over to the ruling party, while the lone YSRCP MP and the party’s three legislators joined the TRS. Following this, Speaker S Madhusudhana Chari, approved the merger of YSRCP Legislature Party with the TRS.
The depleted strength of the Opposition members is reflected even in the ongoing Assembly proceedings. Instead of the Opposition cornering the government on the omissions and the commissions it has committed, the ruling party appeared to be dominating the proceedings.
Reorganisation of districts
Politics apart, the year 2016 will be remembered for the reorganisation of the districts from the existing 10 to 31.
Though the Government claimed that this has been done to take administration to the doorsteps of the people, the Opposition parties criticised that some of the new districts were formed out of poltical considerations rather than for administrative convenience.
On the industrial front, Telangana can now boast of emerging as numero uno along with the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in the Ease of Doing Business index.
According to Industries Minister, K.T. Rama Rao, the State had accorded approvals to 2,929 units involving an investment of ₹49,463 crore. Meanwhile, JAC chairman M. Kodandaram, who has parted ways with the ruling party leadership, seems to have emerged as rallying point for the Opposition parties particularly after the passage of the land acquisition bill.
