The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is all set to retain the Nizamabad Municipal Corporation (NMC) as the numbers are in its favour though it finished third in the elections by winning only in 13 out of the total 60 divisions.
With the help of its political ally AIMIM, which secured 16 divisions, one Independent and one of the two Congress members, who already joined its camp, the party appears to be in a comfortable position to take over the reins of NMC again.
The TRS leaders also eyed another Congress member, but he reportedly refused to defect. In addition, the ruling party has six ex-officio members, three MLAs Bigala Ganesh Gupta, B. Govardhan and A. Jeevan Reddy and MLCs Akula Lalitha, V.G. Goud and D. Rajeswar. Rajya Sabha member D. Srinivas, technically speaking, did not opt for a vote in the corporation.
Thus, all put together, TRS has a strength of 38 members while the BJP has only 28. Even if the two Congress members and one Independent support the BJP, it will have only 31 members and one ex-officio member, MP D. Arvind, accounting for a total of 32. MIM, which was content with the post of Deputy Mayor in the last NMC, is likely to take the same post this time too given the political conditions.
If the MIM insists for the post of Mayor, the political scene might be different.
Meanwhile, all members of both political groups were shifted to camps in different places. The BJP reportedly sent its members to Maharashtra while TRS to Hyderabad. They would arrive directly at the NMC office at 11 a.m. on Monday to take oath.
Names of Neethu Kiran from Division No. 11 and Lavanya from Division No. 15 in the TRS are doing the rounds for the coveted post. Incidentally, former Mayor Akula Sujatha in Division No. 6 and her deputy Fayeem (MIM) were defeated in this election.
