TRS Wins Singareni Elections That See 94% Voting

The TRS-backed Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangham (TBGKS), led by Nizamabad MP and KCR's daughter K Kavitha, won the elections for the Singareni Collieries Employees Union in an emphatic fashion, bagging 77 seats. The AITUC and CITU won just four seats each.

The mines are spread across five districts, and the employees of Singareni Collieries pretty much determine who win the 12 Assembly seats in these five districts, which make these union elections a pretty reliable indicator of which way the winds are blowing.

The TRS pulled all stops to win, making promises to restore dependant jobs (where dependants of employees will get jobs if the employees retire voluntarily on medical grounds) though the courts struck them down, and to waive off income tax for the employees. The mines are only 50% owned by the government of Telangana - the other 50% ownership is with the government of India - and that makes it pretty hard to come through on the promises, but for now, the TRS lives to see another day, and its cadre will continue to be high on morale despite the looming threat of anti-incumbency in 2019.

In a record of sorts, the elections saw a voter turnout of 94%. By the time polling ended at 5 pm, a total of 49,873 of the 52,534 registered voters had exercised their franchise in 11 divisions (the TRS won 9 of those). Police officials had made adequate security arrangements, and the polling was conducted in a peaceful manner.

While technically 16 trade unions contested the poll, the main competion was between the ruling party-supported TBGKS which was in the fray alone, and the unions backed by an alliance of opposition parties which supported the CPI-led AITUC and the CITU. The polls were taken very seriously by the opposition parties, too, making for strange bed-fellows - arch-rivals Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) joined hands with the Left to form the opposition parties' alliance.