HYDERABAD: Victory is always bittersweet. This has come true in the case of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM). The victory in GHMC elections may be pleasurable but it has become a pain too for the party. Though it has notched up an impressive win in the GHMC polls, it has lost the ‘king maker’ position. While it withstood the ‘TRS tornado’ that flattened all opposition parties, the landslide victory of the ruling party has robbed the Majlis of this advantage. The TRS has 99 corporators on its own in addition to 31 ex-officio members when a simple majority of 108 is enough to rule the GHMC.
With an absolute majority, the pink party can have its own nominees elected to the coveted posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor. It remains to be seen whether it will try to accommodate its ‘friendly’ party in the Baldiya administration. On its part, the Majlis leadership will not be making any move for getting the deputy Mayor post, sources said.
Though the Majlis is much pleased with its performance in the elections when all other parties faced a total rout, it finds itself in a piquant position of having to play an opposition role against its own ally.
What will be the Majlis strategy in the Council? “Wait till February 10”, is all that a senior leader would say. The party is expected to choose its floor leader in GHMC by this date.
The election results also points to the impressive gains made by the TRS in the Majlis dominated old city. In several divisions where the Majlis won, the TRS nominees came second. The pink party candidates put up a spectacular performance in Old Malakpet, Akbarbagh, Dabeerpura, Jangammet, Chandrayangutta and other traditional strongholds of the Majlis.
The TRS candidate missed the Jambagh seat by mere five votes to the Majlis and the Karwan seat by 573 votes. This shows the deep inroads made by the TRS in the old city.
Flush from victory, the Majlis president, Asaduddin Owaisi, addressed the newly elected party corporators on Saturday morning. He attributed the ‘historic win’ to team work and asked the corporators to always be accessible to the people and remain alive to their problems.
Asaduddin particularly told the corporators to lead a clean public life since their actions reflected on the party. He wanted them to forget the bitterness of the election and work for the well-being of all. He further told the newly elected corporators to take interest in education and community health.
An interesting aspect of the Majlis victory is that among the 44 corporators elected on its ticket, 35 are BCs, 8 OCs and 1 ST. The winners also include 19 women - all of them first timers. This apart four non-Muslims also figure among the winners. They are: D. Raj Mohan (Puranapul), D. Mohan (Jambagh), Tara Bai (Falaknuma) and Rajender Yadav (Karwan).
The Majlis fielded a total of 60 candidates in the civic poll. Of this it could win only 44. While TRS snatched 15 of the remaining seats BJP grabbed one seat.
For the first time the Majlis tried its luck from the new city wards such as Vengalrao Nagar, Somajiguda, Rahmantnagar, Serlingampally, Allapur, Old Boenpally. In some places it came second and others relegated to third position.
The party narrowly missed the Ghansi Bazar seat to BJP. It also came a cropper at Amberpet, Borabanda and Rahmatnagar. The last two seats are not the traditional stronghold of the party. The party leadership has decided to analyse the results to find out where it erred.