What lies inside? TRS eyes on mayoral' sealed cover

Hyderabad: All eyes in the TRS are on the ‘sealed cover after party chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao announced on Sunday at the party’s state executive that names of TRS nominees for the election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor posts in the GHMC will be placed in a sealed cover and revealed at the time of election on February 11.

Rao’s announcement has kept ministers, party MLAs and other senior leaders on their toes, especially those who have stepped up their efforts to secure the two coveted posts for their better halves or other relatives, after it is now certain that TRS would bag both these posts comfortably.

Given the present political combinations, although none of the parties have secured magic figure to bag these posts, TRS has the advantage of being the single largest party in the GHMC, besides its highest strength of ex-officio members, comprising party MLAs, MLCs and MPs, who can vote in the GHMC Mayoral election.

The Mayor post has been reserved for a woman in the general category for this time, making aspirants from all castes vie for the post. With this, ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs have all stepped up lobbying to bag the Mayor post for their kith and kin. Some ministers even stepped in to bag the Mayor post for their supporters.

The incumbent Mayor Bonthu Rammohan is lobbying hard to secure the post for his wife Bonthu Sridevi, who won from Cherlapally division, a ward vacated by him. Since she won for the first time, his opponents are opposing her candidature on this ground.

Prominent names doing the rounds within the TRS for the Mayor post, include the daughters of former Congress heavyweight leader from Khairatabad late P. Janardhan Reddy, TRS secretary general and Rajya Sabha member K. Keshava Rao.

Interestingly, both PJR’s daughter P. Vijaya Reddy (Khairatabad ward) and Keshav Rao’s daughter Gadwal Vijayalakshmi (Banjara Hills) ward got elected as corporator from the TRS for a second time in a row. Both strongly argue that they deserve the Mayor post for this reason.

This apart, Bharathi Nagar corporator Sindhu Adarsh Reddy, Alwal corporator Chintala Vijayashanthi, Manne Kavitha Reddy from Venkateshwara Colony ward and Mothe Sri Latha Reddy from Tarnaka ward are also said to be in the race for Mayor’s post.

Of them, Sindhu Adarsh Reddy is daughter-in-law of TRS MLC V. Bhoopal Reddy, Chintala Vijayashanthi is daughter-in-law of former TRS MLA Chintala Kanaka Reddy, who died in May 2019, Manne Kavitha Reddy is wife of city TRS leader Manne Govardhan Reddy and Mothe Sri Latha Reddy is married to city TRS leader Mothe Shobhan Reddy.

Though no party could secure the magic figure of 75 seats out of 150 to bag the Mayoral post on its own, TRS emerged as the single largest party by winning 56 seats while the BJP stood second with 48 seats (now 47, after one of its corporator-elect died), AIMIM third was  with 44 seats while the decimated Congress is fourth with two seats.

Only 44 out of the total 52 ex-officio members were found to be eligible to vote in the election. Of them, 32 belong to TRS, 10 to AIMIM and two to BJP. The remaining eight ex-officio members (six from TRS and two from Congress) have exercised their votes in other municipal corporations and hence their names were deleted from the GHMC election.