The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has registered a landslide victory in the municipal elections by bagging about 100 out of the 129 urban local bodies (ULBs) — 120 municipal councils and nine municipal corporations, according to the State Election Commission (SEC) statistics updated on its website till last reports came in.
The Opposition parties, particularly the Congress and the BJP, failed to make much impact, in spite of putting up a brave front till the counting of votes was taken up on Saturday morning. Both finished a distant second and third in winning the wards from a total of 3,052 (2,727 municipal council wards and 325 municipal corporation wards). The TRS bagged 1,686 wards followed by the Congress (569), the BJP (293), the AIMIM (87), the CPI (20), the CPI(M) (12), the TDP (8) Independents (248) and others (49) out of the 2,972 declared results.
Till the filing of this report, the TRS had a clear majority in 85 municipal councils and four municipal corporations, the Congress in five municipalities, the BJP and the MIM in two each and hung verdict in 26 municipalities and five corporations.
Except the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), parties such as the CPI, the CPI(M), the TDP and others struggled to make their presence felt. The AIMIM retained its hold on some pockets where it has mass base by winning two municipalities with a clear majority.
After the landslide victories in the Assembly and rural local body polls, the TRS succeeded in making further dent in the Congress strongholds by bagging municipal councils of Huzurnagar, Kodad, Jagtial, Madhira and Kodangal, the strongholds of Congress bigwigs N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, T. Jeevan Reddy, M. Bhatti Vikramarka and A. Revanth Reddy.
Chief Minister and TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao attributed the “record-breaking” victory to the hard work by the party’s rank and file, including Ministers and legislators. During the run-up to the elections, working president of TRS K.T. Rama Rao said the results would be a referendum on his functioning both as working president and as Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development, although TPCC working president A. Revanth Reddy said the outcome was the result of “misuse and abuse of power” by the ruling party.
The Congress’ claims during the electioneering that its vote bank was intact has fallen flat in the municipal results, although it had succeeded, along with BJP, in putting up a good fight in the elections to Lok Sabha held in April last year.
