Barely few hours before the counting for GHMC elections was about to begin, at around 11pm on December 3^rd, the State Election Commission issued a ridiculously strange notification. These elections were held on ballot paper. The SEC now said that it doesn’t matter if the mark on the paper is Swastik or not – the vote will be counted as long as there isn’t any other kind of mark anywhere in the space allotted for a candidate!

You may ask – why does this matter so much? Because in the final result tally – there is just a 0.25% vote difference between the BJP and the TRS! There are at least 2 constituencies where the difference between the winner and runner-up is just 30 votes. In this kind of an election, every vote will therefore begin to matter. And what better way to secure such votes other than resorting to such outrageous notifications?

The Telangana High Court obviously struck down this notification, but because of this chaos, counting actually began at least 3-4 hours late. Results took a while to trickle in, given the paper ballot situation. While initial trends pointed towards a TRS victory yet again, BJP’s fightback proved very costly to the TRS as the day progressed. At one-point news channels were flashing 61 to TRS and 20 to BJP – and all TRS panelists on the telugu channels were ecstatic on how even Amit Shah couldn’t save the BJP! As the day progressed- TRS finally won 56 seats and the BJP won 48 seats! The MIM, as expected won 44 seats.

Though 75 is the halfway mark, the TRS needed only 67 seats to win the Mayor on its own. GHMC council that elects the Mayor consists of 150 elected corporators and 45 ex-officio members – that’s why TRS needed only 67 seats to win the Mayor seat. With this stinging defeat, the TRS will very obviously align with the MIM to share the post of Mayor. Typically, in these situations, the TRS simply attempts to merge other parties into its fold. But this time the Congress won 2 wards only. So even TRS gets both of them, they still can’t do anything on their own.

We had analyzed here earlier too, that the TRS also saw this defeat coming. The insipid speech of KCR, the aggressive flaring comments by KTR and of course, the communal politics of MIM were all indicators that the BJP was bound to rise in the GHMC this time. It all boiled down to whether TRS will win the magic figure of 67 – and the clearly the voter has now spoken. KCR’s son, KTR, was on the forefront of not just this election. As Municipal Administration minister, he was the only face of the party and government to the people of GHMC for all these years. The Mayor and others were simply relegated to the background. Owing to his suave language, he was seen as the darling of the corporate crowd. He banked a lot on his oratory to carry him through, but clearly if people don’t see results on the ground, no oratory can substitute it.

The BJP cashed in well on this fundamental drawback of the TRS. The inaccessibility of the corporators, the absence of solutions to some fundamental problems were well highlighted by the party. In addition to this, the party also had strong aggressive voices to counter the orator of KTR and KCR. With the cadre enthused after the Dubbaka victory, they doubled their efforts to take the voice of the party to the booth level. Leaders such as Kishan Reddy, Bandi Sanjay and D. Aravind worked very well in cohesion for the messaging part – they each played to their own strengths, which benefitted the party a lot.

All through the election, we had spoken about the TRS, the BJP and the MIM. No one really cared about the Congress party! Many leaders of the party joined the BJP and their local level connect did help the BJP too. After the devastating defeat yesterday (INC won 2 seats only), the state President Uttam Kumar Reddy resigned. Actually, there was clamour for his resignation when the Congress party lost the Huzurnagar MLA bypoll – that seat was held by Uttam Kumar Reddy before he became the MP and the TRS beat his wife in that election! With the revival of Congress, a distinct possibility now, it is not surprising that he has now resigned from the post!

When TRS lost the Dubbaka bypoll, news analysts pointed out how that is also a defeat of KCR’s nephew, Harish Rao, because he was in charge of that election. They wondered if Harish Rao will now be sidelined. With the GHMC loss, no analyst will ask the same question of KTR! There were even impending rumours of KCR handing over the baton to KTR and playing a “larger role at national stage” after the GHMC elections. All alleged plans will now have to wait, because KCR first has to douse the fire in his home.

Image Credit: The Economic Times