Though the mayoral election is months away and provides sufficient time for the single largest party TRS to weigh its options, with just 55 seats in its kitty, the party has no other option but to depend on others.
The BJP has 48 seats and AIMIM has 44 seats out of the 150-member Council. However, with 45 ex-officio members (MPs, MLAs and MLCs), who are eligible to vote in the GHMC council meetings, the total strength of the Council goes up to 195. To secure majority and seek the Mayor post, any party has to get 98 votes. The TRS with 31 ex-officio members and 55 corporators will still be short of the magic figure.
In the present scenario, it has to either take the help of AIMIM that has 44 seats. However, in the present circumstances that alliance will only give scope to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to further attack the ruling TRS as it had been doing throughout the GHMC election campaign.
The other option is to take outside support of the AIMIM but that still will attract criticism from the BJP which the TRS cannot afford as of now. In that scenario, the AIMIM might bargain for the Deputy Mayor post or sharing the Mayor post between the two as was done by the Congress and AIMIM after 2009 GHMC elections.
The only other option for the TRS is to ally with the BJP, which is highly unlikely after the high decibel elections where the two parties had accused each other of vitiating the peaceful atmosphere of Hyderabad.
The TRS, however, has some breathing space with two more months to go for the Council to complete its term. Even the TRS working president, K.T. Rama Rao looked in no hurry on this when media questioned him on Friday night. “We still have lots of time to discuss and decide on it,” he said.
Given the present predicament, the BJP with its new found strength and basking in the glory of incredible performance, will wait and watch the next move of the two parties.
