It is time for elections to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, considered to be a matter of prestige for the TRS government headed by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
On Wednesday, Telangana state election commissioner K Parthasarathy announced that the GHMC elections will be held in November and December, as per the original schedule.
“We are ready to conduct the elections during this period and the schedule would be announced at an appropriate time,” he said.
The SEC has already announced that the elections would be held using ballot papers, instead of EVMs. Almost all the parties have agreed for the usage of ballot papers. The ballot boxes are being procured from various sources and are being kept ready.
More than anybody else, the GHMC elections are prestigious for TRS working president and municipal administration and urban development minister K T Rama Rao.
In 2015, it was KTR who singlehandedly led the party campaign in the GHMC polls and got the entire credit of securing victory for the TRS by winning nearly 100 out of 155 divisions.
He had promised then that the TRS government would transform the entire state capital into Manhattan or Detroit in the next five years. But there is hardly any improvement in the city conditions since then, except cosmetic changes in some parts of the city.
The roads continue to remain bad; the traffic continues to be chaotic and drainage system continues to be horrible. Except a few flyovers on the outskirts, there is no major transformation in the city.
The TRS might take credit for the opening of Hyderabad Metro Rail, but the people are aware when it was started. As a matter of fact, the TRS could not fulfil its promise of completing the Metro Rail project in old city of Hyderabad.
So, KTR has to struggle a lot this time to win the GHMC elections, though he still boasts of winning of more than 100 seats this time!