GHMC Mayoral poll on Feb 11, TRS likely to emerge victorious

Election for the posts of Mayorand Deputy Mayor of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation,which witnessed pitched battle between ruling TRS and BJP inDecember last, will be held on Thursday and K ChandrashekharRao-led outfit has fair chances to bag both the positions as asingle largest party.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party bagged 56divisions, while BJP secured 48 divisions and MIM won in 44divisions and Congress won in two divisions, in the 150-seatcivic body.

The BJP's strength has come down to 47 following thedeath of one of its members.

The saffron party, which gave run for TRSs money hasalso decided to put up its candidates for both Mayor andDeputy Mayor, its chief spokesperson K Krishna Saagar Raosaid.

''BJP is contesting for both Mayor and Deputy Mayoralpositions in the spirit of democracy and to oppose theopportunist, dubious election of TRS party's design to attainMayor position through backhand deal with AIMIM.

TRS did not get people's mandate to run GHMC, the mandatewas fractured and leaned massively towards BJP,'' he told PTI.

TRS sources said their Mayoral and Deputy Mayoralcandidates names will be given to its members in sealedcovers.

The Lok Sabha MPs and MLAs, who have their vote in thecity are ex-officio members of the corporation.

Besides, MLCs and Rajya Sabha members, who have theirvote in the city, have to give an option, choosing the GHMC,to be able to vote, official sources said.

According to GHMC sources, there are 44 ex-officio membervotes in the GHMC and TRS has 32 followed by MIM 10, BJP 2 whoare eligible to vote taking the total number of votes to 194.

With ex-officio member votes, the TRS strength goes up to88, MIM 54 and BJP 49 leading to total 193.

There has to be a quorum of 50 per cent (97) of themembers to conduct Mayor Elections and whichever candidatesecures more number of votes will be elected as the Mayor.

The election will be held at 12.30 PM on February 11 andan hour earlier all the 150 corporators would be administeredthe oath, the Telangana State Election Commission (SEC) saidon Wednesday.

Further, if for any reason the elections are not held onFebruary 11, it will be held the next day, the SEC had said.

PTI GDKROH ROH