Hyderabad Mayor and Deputy to be elected on February 11

The term of the present Council of GHMC ends on February 10, 2021. The post of the Mayor is reserved for a woman Corporator in the upcoming Council.

The Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation will be elected on February 11. The Telangana State Election Commission Friday directed the election authority, who is GHMC Commissioner, to conduct the election at 12.30 pm on February 11.

In the election notification, state election commissioner C Partha Sarathi directed the GHMC Commissioner to authorize one of the District Collectors having jurisdiction over any area comprising the GHMC to conduct the election to the offices of Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

The term of the present Council of GHMC ends on February 10, 2021. The post of the Mayor is reserved for a woman Corporator in the upcoming Council.

According to the election schedule, the directly elected ward members of GHMC will be administered the oath at 11 am on February 11, following which the special meeting for the election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor of GHMC will commence at 12.30 pm. It also states that the election to the post of Deputy Mayor cannot be held unless the election to the post of Mayor is completed. If for any reason, the election to the two offices is not held on February 11, it shall be held on February 12, the schedule states.

In the GHMC elections held on December 1, results of which were announced on December 4, the ruling TRS party won 56 divisions, followed by BJP and MIM which won 48 and 44 divisions, respectively. The Congress party could win only 2 divisions. The results also displayed the emergence of BJP as a strong force as it upped its tally from 4 to 48. On the other hand, the TRS which had a thumping majority of 99 Corporators in the 150-member council, and faced no opposition in the Council for five years, had to be satisfied with 56 Corporators now, a number much below what they expected.

The absence of a clear mandate to the TRS party, the single largest in the upcoming Council, has put it in a tight spot if it wants to secure the Mayor’s chair on its own. In a high-octane campaign that preceded the elections, the TRS faced a lot of criticism from the BJP, as well as from the MIM. The BJP has repeatedly attacked TRS and MIM, calling them two sides of the same coin. Whereas, the two parties have tried to consciously stay apart and even attack each other.

The process of updating the list of ex-officio members, such as MPs, MLAs, MLCs having voting rights in the GHMC Mayor’s election, is currently underway. According to authorities, TRS has 31 ex-officio members, MIM has 10 members, and the BJP and Congress party have two members each.

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