MIM has clear winning track

Hyderabad: The MIM has always won 35 or more wards in the GHMC elections, while the fortunes of other parties ebbed and rose in the three civic elections from 1986. The MIM has always remained unassailable in 13 wards. The party generally contests about 60 wards, mostly in the old city. It has ventured out to new city areas this time. The MIM has so far failed to open its account in the north zone. Its strongholds are in the south and west zones, though the Assembly constituencies that these divisions lie in are represented by the Congress or the BJP.

The MIM has never lost Mallepally, from where former party cief, the late Sultan Salauddin Owaisi, started his political career in 1960. According to party leaders, the MIM won a majority of wards in the Karwan and Malakpet Assembly constituencies in 1986, from where the BJP’s Baddam Balreddy and Indrasena Reddy respectively had been elected MLAs.

In 2002, the MIM won a majority of wards from the erstwhile Asifnagar constituency though the Assembly seat was held by a Congress MLA. MIM leaders say that the Congress, the TD and the BJP do not have strong candidates in about 35 divisions in the old city.

Charminar MLA and MIM general secretary Ahmad Pasha Quadri, associated with the party for four decades, said the MIM first entered the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation by winning two wards in byelections held for the Gandhi Bhavan and Kacheguda wards in 1959. At that time, Hyderabad and Secunderabad had separate 50-seat corporations.

The two corporations were merged in 1960 after the civic elections, and MIM emerged the single largest party in the MCH. “The ruling Congress tried to scuttle the MIM’s chance to hold the Mayor’s post by merging both the corporations by issuing an order at midnight."

MIM’s Nampally MLA Meraj Hussain said daily sittings of elected representatives since 1972 at the Darussalam party headquarters helped build the party at the grassroots level. Mr Quadri said that before 1972 the party’s elected representatives used to sit at Begum Manzil at Himayatnagar, adjacent to the then house of Abdul Wahed Owaisi, grandfather of MIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.

Equally, there was the failure on part of the major political parties like the Congress, the BJP and the TD to reach out to the areas which are dominated by Muslims. The TD and BJP leaders admit in private that they found it difficult to pick strong candidates in certain wards where the MIM held out. Party tickets are given to those who offer to contest from these wards.