Hyderabad: Is the ruling TRS government gunning for the GHMC polls to fall on Sankranti eve when a majority of the 30 lakh plus Seemandhra voters will be visiting their hometowns? The Opposition Congress and the TD-BJP combine think so.
The Opposition parties also see a plot in the ruling party filing an affidavit in the Hyderabad High Court expressing its willingness to complete the GHMC election process before January 31, 2016.
However, elections, and when to hold them, are the exclusive domain of the State Election Commission, which has not yet decided on the poll dates. “Unless we receive the details of delimitation of divisions and the reservations to various divisions, we cannot comment on when we will hold the polls and on what date,” a source in the State Election Commission told Deccan Chronicle.
“According to our information, the government wants to hold GHMC polls either on January 15 or 16. It is a known fact that lakhs of Seemandhra people living in the capital will move to AP for the vacation.
TRS is desperate and wants to avoid Seemandhra voters’ participation in the polls so that the TRS-MIM combine can win; we demand the State Election Commission to come out with a statement clearly telling people that elections to GHMC will not be held during the vacation,” said former Congress minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy.
It is an open secret in city politics that TRS-MIM will have some understanding in the GHMC polls and this is the cause of worry for the Congress and TD-BJP combine. Leaders of all the three Opposition parties have earlier issued statements that safeguarding the interests of 30 lakh Seemandhra voters would be one of their priorities. It is also a fact that the TD-BJP combine had bagged 15 out of the 24 Assembly segments falling under the GHMC area in the last Assembly elections.
TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu recently appointed Jubilee Hills MLA Maganti Gopinath, who has Seemandhra roots, as president of the Hyderabad city unit.
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