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Hung Truths
The TDP
may have won the coveted mayoral race in Hyderabad but it could mean little
given that the party has no majority in the corporation, writes India
Today's Associate Editor Amarnath K. Menon.
For
the ruling TDP-BJP combine, the fact that it has foisted its mayor on
Hyderabad in the just-concluded elections to the 100-seat municipal corporation
is great news. Equally stunning has been the TDP's capture of the Rajamundhry
Corporation and the municipalities of the Tirupathi and Markapur, not
to mention the BJP's win in Gaddianaram. Yet, it's not all that hunky-dory
for the two parties which are forced to acknowledge some hard truths.
For the moment, however, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu prefers to
bask in the good news. With the TDP's burly contestant, Teegala Krishna
Reddy, defeating ex-mayor Mir Zulfiqar Ali of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen
(MIM) by the proverbial whisker, it was more of a pleasant surprise for
the party. Reddy secured a majority of 21, 534 votes though there were
doubts about the TDP winning after it became clear that only 42.9 per
cent of the electorate had cast its vote. This is a sharp fall from the
68 per cent polling during the MCH elections in 1986.
Low polling also upset the calculations of the MIM which had until then
considered Ali's victory a foregone conclusion. Electoral arithmetic and
vote bank politics pointed to a MIM victory because there are 10 lakh-odd
Muslim voters in the city, leaving 16.79 lakh voters for the other parties.
"We lost the mayoral race because of intimidation of voters,"
argues the MIM legislature party leader Assaduddin Owaisi. "Besides,
there were 50,000 invalid votes." However, the MIM continues to be
the single largest party in the MCH with 36 seats, two short of what it
got in 1986. It managed to cross major hurdles posed by its new election
symbol, the kite. The party relied on the popular Adnan Sami number Humko
bhi toda lift kara de to make its symbol widely known.
Working against the MIM this time was the breakaway Majlis Bachao Tehreek
(MBT) that emerged after the last MCH elections and had apparently extended
support to the BJP-TDP combine. Of the 4,30,000-odd minority votes polled,
the MIM's finally tally was only about 3,40,000 votes. The TDP's Krishna
Reddy secured 3,62,119 votes while Zulfiqar Ali polled 3,40,585 votes.
Congress candidate D. Nagender, who was elected from the city's Asifnagar
constituency to the assembly, finished third polling 2,26,975 votes.
"The popularity of the chief minister helped the TDP," admits
Nagender. In the past five years, the Naidu Government had given Hyderabad
new flyovers to ease traffic congestion, brighter street lights, better
roads, more parks and improved utilities. But it is equally true that
the load of pollution had doubled in the city while water remained scarce
and drainage and sewerage woefully inadequate. Recognising these shortfalls,
Krishna Reddy has set as his first first priority the task of easing the
water supply problems in the city. "The next goal would be to make
both Hyderabad and Secunderabad green and I will follow that with a tour
of the city once a week," adds Reddy.
While the TDP is still to get over Reddy's election, the reasons for its
not-so-great showing in the city hall otherwise have been lost in the
euphoria. The party won 22 seats, two less than what it secured in 1986
while the BJP gained, increasing its tally to 15 from 12 last time. But
even with a combined strength of 37, the two parties cannot give civic
policies a direction if the MIM and the Congress, which together occupy
56 seats, decide to join hands.
The MIM-Congress alliance is a certainity if the two parties agree on
who will be the deputy mayor and the all-important chairperson of the
standing committee. Both are to be elected by the majority of the corporators.
The MIM, in all likelihood, wll approach the Congress for the post of
chairperson who holds the purse strings and is vested with the authority
of sanctioning finance for any development work. In the trade off, the
Congress will have to settle for the office of deputy mayor. This being
a strong possibility, the TDP mayor may not have it that easy. Residents
of Hyderabad may just find that there will be no change in the pace of
development in the city after all.
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