Congress wins landslide in civic polls

Hyderabad: Continuing its winning streak, the ruling Congress party won a majority of urban local bodies in the state by winning 64 municipalities and bagging more than half of the wards out of the total 2,582 wards which went for polls.

The results/trends released by the State Election Commission (SEC) indicated victory for the Congress party in the municipal elections which were held on February 11. The BRS managed to win 15 municipalities while there was hung in more than 35 municipalities. The BJP has won in one municipality. As many as 14 wards were already declared unanimous by the SEC. The polls were held in 2,569 wards in 116 municipalities and 412 divisions in seven municipal corporations.

With regard to the corporations, the Congress party won with a clear majority in Nalgonda, Ramagundam and Mancherial and has touched the halfway mark in the Mahbubnagar Municipal Corporation. The ruling party is set to get the Kothagudem as it has an alliance with the CPI, which is leading in the corporation. However, the party had to face setbacks in Karimnagar and Nizamabad Corporations where it could not get the expected results.. The BJP emerged as the single largest party in the corporations like Karimnagar and Nizamabad. The AIMIM has won 36 wards in several municipalities and 18 divisions in municipal corporations.

The All India Forward Bloc has also won one municipality, Waddepally, in Gadwal district. 

The AIFB leader W Srinivas said that they were nowhere related to the Telangana Jagruthi leader K Kavitha. It may be mentioned here that Kavitha had fielded candidates on the AIFB tickets. Srinivas said that when they went to take B-Form, Kavitha offered khanduvas of Jagruthi but did not campaign. The Jana Sena has also opened its account in Telangana by winning in Nereducherla and Telugu Desam Party has also won in a municipality in Khammam district.

The BRS was lucky in the Dubbaka Municipality where the candidate was declared elected after taking up draw of lots. In the ward number 3, the votes of Congress and BRS were the same. To avoid confusion, the officials counted the votes twice and found that there was a tie. After the draw of lots, the BRS candidate got elected.

There was a high voltage drama in a ward in Gadwal Municipality. The authorities took up recounting for at least four times as every time counting was done the result was changing leading to some tensed moments among the political party leaders. First time when the officials declared that the BRS candidate won with two votes, the Congress leaders demanded recounting. When recounting was done, the majority decreased by one vote.

When the recounting was done again, the result changed and the Congress candidate got one vote majority. For a full clarity, the officials once again counted for the fourth time the votes and found that the Congress got one vote majority.