After the declaration of results for 149 of the 150 divisions in Hyderabad civic polls, K. Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has emerged the single largest party with 55 seats, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes a well-fought second with 48 seats. Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has won 44. The Congress party has only two divisions to its credit.
Counting of votes was halted at Neredmet division as ballot papers with distinguish markers instead of ‘arrow cross-mark rubber stamp’ were found in majority. Naredmet will be decided based on High Court directions.
TRS
Ruling TRS has scraped through to emerge as the single largest party, but did not cross the halfway mark.
Telangana Minister and TRS leader KT Rama Rao said the party was expecting to win more seats. “I thank people of Hyderabad who chose TRS as the single largest party to represent them in Council. Result is certainly not what we expected, we’re short of 20-25 seats. We lost about 10-12 divisions with extremely narrow margin,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying.
BJP
BJP has emerged the second-largest party, improving its share of seats and votes by nearly ten times.
The saffron party emerged second in almost all the wards that it lost to either the ruling TRS or AIMIM.
BJP’s performance in the polls is a ‘moral victory’ for the party and it has emerged as the ‘only alternative’ to the ruling TRS in Telangana, its general secretary Bhupender Yadav said.
The BJP, which won only 4 last time, fielded an entire battery of its top leaders from PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in election campaign.
AIMIM
The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM continued its dominance in its traditional stronghold of the old city of Hyderabad, winning 44.
Magic number
With ex-officio votes of 52, the total electoral college strength of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) reaches 202. Ex-officio members are members of the Legislative Assembly, Legislative Council and Parliament, whose jurisdiction falls within the limits of GHMC. However, as of now, seven of 52 are ineligible to vote as they exercised their vote in another corporation or council which fell under their jurisdiction. Of the remaining 45 members, 31 belong to the TRS, followed by the AIMIM (10), BJP (3) and Congress (1).
The total strength of the GHMC council would be considered 195 and the magic number for GHMC polls is 98.
 has emerged the single largest party with 55 seats, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes a well-fought second with 48 seats. Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has won 44. The Congress party has only two divisions to its credit.){kind=link}