MIM Bags Hyderabad MLC Seat With 63 Votes

The MIM has won the Hyderabad district local body seat MLC election.

MIM candidate Mirza Riyazul Hassan Effendi got 63 votes, while BJP candidate Gautam Rao got only 25 votes.

The MIM candidate thus won by a majority of 38 votes.

The MIM candidate got 49 votes from his party and 14 votes from the Congress.

Although the BJP had pinned its hopes on cross-voting by Congress and BRS leaders in the elections, that did not happen, leading to its humiliating defeat. BRS corporators and ex-officio members in fact abstained from the voting.

A total of 78.57% polling was recorded in the election. 88 votes were cast out of a maximum of 112. 66 corporators and 22 ex-officio members exercised their right to vote. BJP, Congress and MIM corporators, and ex-officio members participated in the polling.

Meanwhile, a heavy police presence patrolled the GHMC office in the backdrop of the counting of the votes.

After his defeat, the BJP candidate Dr Gautam Rao said at a media conference at the BJP State office that the BJP had achieved a moral victory in the election.

"These elections were held in a way that insulted the people of Hyderabad. It has once again been revealed today that the BRS and Congress are working in the footsteps of the MIM. The Congress is supporting the MIM, as seen by the fact that it did not field a candidate. The BRS too indirectly helped the MIM to win in a similar way. It is clear that the Congress and the BRS are working under the watchful eye of the MIM. The people of Telangana are watching the drama of the Congress and the BRS," he said.

He said that his party considered the call of the BRS to boycott the MLC elections as undemocratic and unconstitutional, and added that the BJP had filed a complaint with the Election Commission.

"We urge the people to protest if the BRS and the Congress come before the people again in any election in the coming days," Rao said.