Having tasted bitter experience in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi is said to be seeking postponement of elections in Warangal and Khammam municipal corporations, scheduled to be held in February/March.
The term of the present elected bodies in Warangal and Khammam municipal corporations will end in March. So, the elections should have to be scheduled in February for which the process should have begun by the state election commission by now.
However, the TRS government is understood to have asked the SEC to defer the elections by at least three months on various pretexts: first, there is going to be the budget session of the state assembly in February and March and as such, the officials and political leaders would be busy with the session.
Secondly, the classes for schools and colleges will begin from February 1 and they would be hectic in the next two months, till the completion of examinations in April end or May. So, teachers and employees would not be available for electioneering process.
If the SEC agrees with the state government’s request, the elections to these two municipal corporations would be held either in the last week of May or first week of June, sources said.
Apparently, the TRS does not want to give advantage to the BJP which it had gained in the GHMC elections. In the next three months, the TRS leaders would tour extensively in the two districts and implement the government programmes vigorously, so as to gain advantage.
KCR reportedly instructed the party leaders to focus on strengthening the party at the booth level by constituting booth-level committees in the Khammam and Warangal municipal corporation areas.
The Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation has 58 divisions of which the TRS had won 44 in 2016, and the BJP one. The BJP did not win a single ward in the Khammam Municipal Corporation in 2016.