Hyderabad: Akbaruddin continues to hold sway over electorate

Hyderabad: The Chandrayangutta Assembly constituency is considered to be the fortress of Akbaruddin Owaisi, the floor leader of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) for the last several decades. He represents the constituency and has been winning the seat for the last five terms and has won it in 2018 by a margin of 80,264 votes with his nearest rival BJP candidate.

The Chandrayangutta area is a hub for Defence Research and Defence Organisation in Telangana. The constituency presently comprises the neighbourhoods Chandrayangutta, Barkas, Bandlaguda, Moin Bagh, Jangammet, Rakshapuram, Edi Bazar, Uppuguda and other areas. The constituency is located in Hyderabad district of Telangana State and falls under the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency and is one of the 15 constituencies in Hyderabad City. It is one of the oldest constituencies in the city since 1952 and has over 2.63 lakh voters.

Though it has recorded one of the highest nominations in Hyderabad with 15 candidates in 2018, MLA Akbaruddin won the seat with the highest majority of votes with over 80,000 vote margin.

He won the constituency for the fifth time in a row, defeating his nearest BJP rival Syed Shahzadi. Here the people cast their vote for Akbaruddin as their only leader. For Majlis and its floor leader, the constituency is an easy win and even its decades-old rival party Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) also failed to defeat Akbaruddin since 1999.

For Majlis, two Assembly constituencies, Yakutpura and Chandrayangutta witnessed a keen contest between the archrivals MIM and MBT. Both candidates are battling for supremacy in these two prestigious constituencies, while Akbaruddin has had great dominance for the last five terms.

As per the political analysts, Amanullah represented this constituency for five terms from 1987-1994. He won three times as an independent, one on a MIM ticket and once as an MBT contestant in 1994. He defeated the Majlis candidate Yousuf Bin Abdul Khader in 1994.

However, in 1999 Amanullah lost the seat to Akbaruddin Owaisi in 1999 in a close contest with a margin of 11,920 votes. Akbaruddin polled 66,657 votes while MBT secured 54,737. Since then, Akbaruddin retained the seat.

Though, the MBT still fields its candidates for the seat here. The other contenders have been from the BJP, TDP and INC. However, none managed to secure even the second position in the last four terms.

In the last two terms of the Assembly elections, in 2014 elections, the MIM candidate Akbaruddin won the seat with 80,393 (59.19 per cent) polled votes.

He won by a margin of 59,294 votes, while Dr Khayam Khan of MBT secured 21,119 (15.55 per cent) votes, TDP’s M Prakash Mudiraj got 17,391 (12.9 per cent) and BRS’s MuppidiSeetharam secured 7,278 (5.36 per cent) votes and INC’s B R Sadanand obtained 5,120 (3.77 per cent) votes.

As many as 15 candidates were the contenders for the elections in 2018 from Chandrayangutta. While, BJP fielded Shahzadi Sayed from the constituency, but failed to defeat Akbaruddin and he won the seat with 95,341 (67.95 per cent) polled votes with 80,264 majority of votes. And Shahzadi stood second with 15,078 (10.75 per cent) votes. BRS’s M Seetharam Reddy got 14,227 (10.14 per cent) votes and INC’s EsaMisri got 11,310 (8.6 per cent) votes.

In the upcoming election, BJP, BRS, and INC are expected to field familiar candidates who posed a strong challenge in the previous campaign.

These parties conducted extensive election campaigns, attracting a significant number of supporters and garnering a substantial number of votes against the Majlis party.