Voting for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) began at 7 a.m. Tuesday and will continue until 6 p.m. More than 7.4 million people are exercising their franchise in the fifth largest metropolitan area in India. Up to 1,122 candidates are in the fray for 150 constituencies.
The vote count will take place on December 4 and the results will be announced in the afternoon. This year’s election will see voting through the paper ballot system instead of electronic voting machines (EVM).
On Tuesday morning, people were seen standing in various polls to cast their votes. Union Minister G Kishan Reddy voted at the Deeksha Modern School in Kachiguda.
Meanwhile, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) head Asaduddin Owaisi cast his vote at St Faiz High School in Hyderabad, which is among several designated polling places this year. Telangana minister and TRS leader KT Rama Rao was also seen exercising his right to vote.
Other senior officials who voted are Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjannar, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar, Telangana Chief Justice Rajendra Singh Chowhan, and many others. Prominent Telugu actor and former Union minister K Chiranjeevi and his wife Surekha had cast their votes at the Jubilee Hills Club polling station.
Voter turnout at various polling stations in Hyderabad was low. Only 4.2 percent of voters cast their ballot in the first two hours. Chiranjeevi and KT Rama Rao called on all eligible voters in Hyderabad to exercise their right to vote in large numbers to save democracy.
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) in India, polling stations have been cleaned up and areas inside and outside the polls have been marked to ensure social distancing. Voters are required to sanitize their hands and wear face masks / coverings before casting their vote, in addition to maintaining social distancing while standing in line.
The parties fighting to emerge victorious at the municipal polls are the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), AIMIM, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Congress Party. But, the direct contest is between TRS, BJP and AIMIM.
TRS won in 2015 as it secured 99 seats out of a total of 150. The AIMIM that was in alliance with TRS won 44 seats and the BJP-TDP alliance won 5 seats. Congress was only able to win 2 seats.
The star activists for 2020 have been Union Interior Minister Amit Shah, Asaduddin Owaisi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, KT Rama Rao, among many others.
Interior Minister Amit Shah, who previously held an hour-long road show at Warasiguda in Secunderabad, said on Nov. 29 that Hyderabad was an integral part of the country, adding that the capital city of Telangana would shed the Nizam culture if The BJP wins. Shah also stressed that the mayor of Hyderabad would also be from the BJP.
Adityanath sparked a controversy after he launched to name Hyderabad as Bhavyanagar. On a tour in the Malkajgiri division, he said that the names of Allahabad and Faizabad were also changed after the BJP took power in Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier, Owaisi had criticized the BJP campaign saying the party deployed as many leaders as if a prime minister were being elected. “It doesn’t look like a Hyderabad election, it is as if we are choosing a Prime Minister instead of Narendra Modi,” he said.
.
