GHMC Results: Just Two Divisions For Congress

The Congress has received a huge setback in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, managing to win only two divisions.

The Party, which had won the highest number of seats in the last elections (53), has been confined to the fourth position this time with the pathetic performance.

Even the supposed stalwarts lost. In the last GHMC, Congress candidate Banda Karthika Reddy had been the Mayor for the first three years with the support of the MIM (later, MIM candidate Majid Hussain worked as the Mayor). In this election, even Reddy did not get elected, losing to TRS candidate A Saraswathi. (Interestingly, the Congress had announced Vikram Goud, ex-minister Mukesh Goud's son, as its mayorial candidate this time - Goud, too, lost, to the MIM by five votes.)

The Congress used even AICC leaders to campaign in these elections, but that gambit, too, failed to attract the voters. The differences between Greater Hyderabad Congress chief Danam Nagender, who flirted with joining the TRS but withdrew in the last minute, and Ranga Reddy district Congress leaders also affected the chances of the Congress. CLP leader K Jana Reddy's praises for the Rs. 5 meal, and the migration of second-rung leaders of the party into the TRS, also affected the winning chances of the Congress in a big way.