Just about six years after the formation of Telangana, the BJP has arrived with a bang, capturing 48 of the 150 municipal divisions in the recent Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election — from a mere four wins in the 2016 election — and garnering a sizeable vote share of 34.56%, which is 0.3% less than that of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). The victory cannot be brushed aside as inconsequential, being one, after all, in a city civic election. It is significant in many ways. For the first time, the BJP has managed to challenge the near invincibility of the TRS, making it tough for the party to get its mayoral candidate elected. It has exposed the ephemeral nature of a strong regional sentiment. Riding on this Telangana sentiment, the TRS had won all the elections since the formation of the separate State in 2014.
Hyderabad is a mini-India seeped in cosmopolitan culture — a city treated as the heart of Telangana — encompassing as many as 25 Assembly segments (out of the total 119) and five Lok Sabha constituencies (of the total 17 in the State). If the BJP could effectively peddle its now-finely tuned strategy of communal polarisation, sugarcoated as ‘development agenda’, in such a city, the fear is that it could extend it to the rest of the State by the next Assembly election scheduled for 2023, thus moving a step closer to its ambitious plan of expanding its footprint in south India, which has been eluding it, barring Karnataka.
GHMC election | Massive vote-share swing helped BJP
The AIMIM’s policy
The BJP’s performance in Hyderabad was matched by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which retained its seat share in the council. The BJP’s victories would not have come as a surprise to the AIMIM president and MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who had strongly opposed the formation of a separate Telangana on the ground that a smaller State with a large Muslim population would be a fertile ground, sooner or later, for a party unabashedly espousing majoritarian rule.
The memorandum submitted by the AIMIM to the Srikrishna Committee, that was tasked with looking into the demand for a separate State, was quite revealing. “Our party is of the considered opinion that, in the ideal situation, the continuation of status quo, that is United Andhra Pradesh state, is in the overall interest of the minorities. The Muslims have issues and concerns with regard to the demand for separate statehood for Telangana because of apprehension regarding their safety, security and socio-economic well-being and welfare in a smaller state, more so because of the open hostility of the BJP and other constituents of the Sangh Parivar on the one hand and the deep-rooted animosity of the Left parties, on the other hand, towards them,” Mr. Owaisi had said.
The AIMIM’s opposition to a separate Telangana appears to be a paradox, given the fact that Telangana was part of a larger erstwhile Hyderabad State ruled by the Nizams, the last of whom, Mir Osman Ali Khan, was fully backed by the party in his attempt to keep the dominion intact and resist its integration into the Indian Union. The AIMIM knew that every episode in the turbulent history of the Hyderabad State would come in handy for the BJP to exploit, as is seen by the latter’s demand for official celebration of September 17 as the Hyderabad Liberation Day (it was on this day in 1948 that the Indian Army’s action forced the Nizam’s army to surrender, paving the way for the merger of Hyderabad into the Indian Union). This event was given a decent burial by the TRS after assuming power, though it kept demanding its official celebration all through the Telangana movement.
GHMC election | No loss, no gain for AIMIM
But what did the AIMIM do to counter the BJP? There is nothing much to show. The AIMIM continues to adopt a policy of being a perfect foil for the BJP, which earned it the “voter-cutter” sobriquet; it is happy protecting its exclusive Muslim constituency and targeting the Congress. Mr. Owaisi seems too busy projecting himself as the sole Muslim leader in India and expanding his party’s base, rather than working on a well-coordinated strategy with secular parties to check the onward march of the BJP.
As in other elections across the country, the BJP’s blatantly polarising campaign strategy for the GHMC polls was apparent with its Telangana State president and MP, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, making provocative rants like “surgical strike” on the Muslim-dominated Old City of Hyderabad, claiming that it has become a shelter for the Rohingya and Bangladeshis. He challenged Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for a debate at Bhagyalaxmi temple, which controversially abuts Charminar, and asked him to come clean on the “hidden understanding” between the TRS and the AIMIM.
Ignoring the burning civic issues of a growing metropolis, all sorts of divisive elements were marshalled with great emotive appeal to pepper its high-voltage campaign — quite in sync with the current dominant thinking among sections of the Indian middle classes. The arrival of a horde of BJP bigwigs, like Union Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, only added to the sting of its polarising campaign, with Mr. Adityanath claiming that only the BJP could change Hyderabad to ‘Bhagyanagar’.
GHMC election | Congress decline continues with poor show
TRS’s sorry record
But one should understand that such a starkly communal campaign works in a situation where the failures of the government are galore. The recent floods in Hyderabad left a large section of people distraught and disappointed. The TRS government could neither prevent encroachment of lakes and nalas, nor did it reach out in time to people caught in the deluge. It also goofed up in extending flood relief of ₹10,000 to each family , as thousands did not get it. The government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its poor record in fulfilling the promises of building double-bedroom houses, providing jobs to youth and garnering revenue from the Layout Regularisation Scheme dented the TRS’s vote share. Never to lose a chance, the BJP also included in its campaign armoury Mr. Rao’s reluctance to go to the Secretariat, his frequent visits to his farmhouse, and his subtle projection of his son and Minister, K. T. Rama Rao, as “prince in waiting”.
Politically, too, Mr. Rao made certain mistakes that he must be regretting now. All through his six years in office, he was virtually on a mission to decimate the principal Opposition parties, the Congress and the TDP, by poaching their MLAs. The BJP was not even on his radar as he perceived it to be too weak, while he kept cultivating the AIMIM. The weakening of the Congress and the TDP, that acted as a buffer, created a political vacuum, and being friendly to the AIMIM, it now seems, helped the BJP immensely. Unless Mr. Rao reworks his political strategy and focuses on checking the BJP, he may face a challenging time ahead.
K. Venkateshwarlu is a senior journalist based in Hyderabad
