Hyderabad: NDA partners TDP and BJP on Saturday began discussions on seat-sharing for the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) on February 2. BJP MLA Chintala Ramachandra Reddy, city BJP president Venkat Reddy and city TDP president and MLA Maganti Gopinath were among those who took part in the talks.
Telangana State Election Commission announced on Friday that nominations would be accepted from January 12 to 17. Polling would be held on February 2 from 7 am to 5 pm, while counting of votes will take place on February 5.
The opposition Congress, BJP and TDP have alleged that reservation of divisions (wards) for elections has not been done properly. The total number of divisions is 150. As many as 24 Assembly constituencies of Telangana come under the GHMC limits. Congress and MIM alliance had emerged triumphant in the last elections in 2009.
Campaigning began even before the poll notification was issued. TRS, led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, has kickstarted its campaign with hoardings coming up everywhere.
The Chief Minister's son and IT and Panchayat Raj minister K T Rama Rao and other ministers have been visiting various residential localities. TRS, though the ruling party of the state, is not known as a major force in Hyderabad, which has a population of about 60 lakh. Notably, it had not contested the last GHMC polls in 2009.
Rama Rao has sought to reach out to the city residents who hail from Seemandhra region amid the allegations by opposition that TRS insulted and intimidated this section of the population during the agitation for separate state.
TDP-BJP alliance which won 15 Assembly seats under GHMC in the last Assembly elections is keen to do well again. Senior BJP leaders including Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Radha Mohan Singh, Hansraj Ahir and Bandaru Dattatreya have campaigned in the last few days.
