Hyderabad: There is a huge rush for general quota seats on the city outskirts in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections.
General aspirants from all political parties are seeking tickets for seats on the outskirts with most of the divisions in core city areas reserved for various categories.
With this, nearly a dozen strong candidates are aspiring for each seat on the city outskirts, making it tough for all major parties to select one among them.
The aspirants, who have already spent lakhs of rupees to “maintain” party cadre in the respective divisions for the last few months hoping for a party ticket, are now exploring all options to contest the elections.
These aspirants have kept all options open: They are willing to even change the party, if any other party offers them the ticket for any division reserved for general quota or seeking any general seat from the same party.
All the party offices are flooded with applications from such general candidates.
On Wednesday, the residence of commercial taxes minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav in West Marredpally, Secunderabad, witnessed a huge rush of such general candidates who lost the chance to contest in Secunderabad circle due to reservations.
“The reservations have certainly altered the political plans of many aspirants. But there is little we can do on that front. However, there is equally tough competition for tickets from local leaders on the outskirts,” Mr Yadav said.
He said that it would be difficult to convince local leaders on the city outskirts to give their seats to those from core areas. “All the applications were forwarded to TRS candidate screening committee, which will take a final call.
Ultimately, it’s the winnability of the candidates that matters during selection,” Mr Yadav said.
The BJP too is facing similar situation in Khairtabad as all divisions in both the circles were allotted for reserved categories.
“There are several general candidates in Khairtabad, who have been working for the party for the last few years and incurred heavy expenditure to maintain the party cadre with the hope of contesting the GHMC election.
But their hopes were dashed due to reservations. Now they want unreserved seats on the city outskirts. But it would be tougher since we have electoral alliance with the TD, which is demanding more seats on city outskirts,” said G. Kishan Reddy, state BJP president.
Ring tones, apps to educate voters
As many as 94 candidates have filed nominations, one Telugu Desam and another Independent for GHMC polls. The last day of filing of nominations is January 17.
It is believed that the process will pick up pace after Sankranti festival as many Hindus consider it inauspicious to start something major before the festival.
To improve the voting percentage, the GHMC plans to introduce a ring tone educating callers to cast the vote. The ring tone will be exclusive to GHMC officials.
Surendra Mohan, IAS, additional commissioner (elections) explained, “Over 1,500 mobile phones are used by the our staff. Each phone gets around 50 calls per day, making it 75,000 calls per day. If the 20 days (till the elections) is taken into account, around 15 lakh people (75,000x20) will hear the message to cast their vote.”
The GHMC will be organising a meeting on January 18 with civil societies and various residential welfare associations on voter awareness.
Mr Mohan said that a separate app has been launched for convenience of the citizens to search for their voter slip on their mobile phones. The GHMC also plans to link the TSEC website with the GHMC website.
