Preliminary figures show a massive 24.26% vote-share swing in its favour was the key to the stunning performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election.
The BJP saw the number of wards held by the party rise from 4 in 2016 to 46 this time round. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) saw a 8.95% vote-share swing away from it, leading to the drop in the number of wards the party controls in one of the richest corporations in the country. In contrast, the BJP saw its vote share jump from 10.34% in the 2016 GHMC election to 34.56% in 2020.
The numbers for TRS dipped from a high of 14,68,618 votes in 2016 to 12,04,167 votes this time. The BJP saw the number of voters favouring it rocket from 3,46,253 to 11,95,711. The difference in voteshare between BJP and TRS was just 0.3%
But BJP’s victory came at the cost of almost all the other parties, more so, from its one-time partner — the TDP which had allied with the BJP in 2016 elections. The TDP identified with the communities living in certain eastern and western pockets of the city has been decimated with its vote share plunging from 13.11% to 1.61%. The party had won one seat then but drew a blank this time. In 2014 Assembly elections, the TDP’s vote share was 20.9% and the two parties together snagged 14 of the 24 Assembly constituencies in the city.
Surprisingly, the Congress vote share dipped to 6.5% but the number of wards the party won in this civic election remained the same: two.
The All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen, which managed to hold on to its numbers, actually saw its vote share go up from 15.85% in 2016 to 18.28%.
