The twenty-month old ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) Government will face its first litmus test on Tuesday as the biggest civic body in the State, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) will go to polls.
More than seven million voters will be exercising their franchise in Tuesday’s election in which 1,333 candidates are in the fray for 150 seats.
The election is witnessing a multi-cornered close contest as the TRS was pitted against a strong alliance of TDP-BJP on one hand and the traditionally strong Muslim political
party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) of Asaduddin Owaisi. The Congress was also in the fray but by all reckoning it was trailing at the distant fourth position.
The GHMC election was specially crucial election for the TRS as the party was yet to prove its mettle in and around the State capital where the settlers or the people of Andhra origin have a significantly large concentration. Approximately 2.5 million voters from Andhra who have traditionally been supporting the TDP and majority of these votes were likely to go the TDP-BJP alliance.
After its poor performance in 2014 elections, when the TRS could win only three of the 25 Assembly seats and TD-BJP won 13 seats, the TRS leadership went all out to lure the leaders of other parties and brought many legislators of TDP and the Congress to its fold.
MIM, which had won seven Assembly seats in the GHMC area, is likely to retain its hold over the old city.
The administration has made foolproof arrangements at 7,802 polling stations for the voting which will begin at 8 am.