Ahead of counting, AIMIM also lends support to TRS

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, December 10

With hours to go before the Telangana poll results are known, both Bharatiya Janata Party and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) have promised support to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in case it falls short of numbers.

The AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi met TRS chief Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao on Monday to promise him unconditional support, should he require it. The BJP has already said it would support TRS if the AIMIM’s not part of the government.

TRS’s hopes ride KCR’s popularity wave to get another term in office and TRS is preparing to celebrate its victory on Tuesday evening. At the same time a Congress led “Praja Katumi” (people's alliance) leaders on Monday met the Telangana Governor ESL Narasimhan and asked him to invite the largest group of pre-poll alliance partners in case no party got a clear majority.

It’s learnt that all parties have already established contact with some independent candidates who could prove kingmakers.

The BJP that contested the assembly elections on its own has already given up the idea of forming the government, giving indications of support to the TRS. It now appears that the BJP went along to revive its cadres for the 2019 Parliamentary polls and to ensure a spilt of votes in a triangular contest between alliance, BJP and TRS with the objective of helping the TRS that was part of the NDA till recently.

In the 2014 elections, the BJP had fought the Telangana polls jointly with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and won five seats out of the 119. All the five constituencies were Uppal, Musheerabad, Amberpet, Goshamahal and LB Nagar constituencies from Hyderabad.  

The 2019 election is the first election after the bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh that was fought on local issues, with TRS seeking re-election as people’s mandate for its performance. The BJP used national schemes and communal angle to elicit votes, while the Congress-led alliance spoke mainly about corruption by care taker chief minister and his family.

Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar said on Monday evening that the counting of votes will start at 7 am, and results will be declared after a total of 2,379 rounds of counting, which comes to about 15 to 25 rounds for each constituency. The EVMs have been kept in strong rooms with party workers having been given access to the compound as Congress had expressed apprehension of EVM tempering and replacement. He said that most of the results were expected to be declared by 12:30 pm.