Though the run-up to the poll saw a high pitched campaign by the parties, the turnout of the voters on December 1 was an unimpressive 46.55 per cent (34.50 lakh) out of the total 74.67 lakh voters.
Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy unveiled a statue of TDP founder N T Rama Rao in Hyderabad, aiming to appeal to TDP supporters ahead of upcoming civic polls. The move is seen as an attempt by the Congress to gain ground in areas with a significant Andhra Pradesh-native voter base.
Political analyst and former MLC Prof Nageshwar said that by frequently visiting the temple the BJP is trying to polarise votes which unfortunately MIM also wants.
The polling started at 7 am and would continue till 5 pm.
A total of 74,44,260 voters will exercise their franchise using ballot papers to elect their representatives.
The Bharatiya Janata Party bagged 48 wards and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen of Asaduddin Owaisi secured 44.
The ruling Congress party has emerged as the single largest party in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation by winning 52 of the 150 seats, results of which were announced on Thursday. However, the hopes of the Congress leaders of sweeping the elections and bagging two-third of the seats were dashed.
Owaisi argued that such inclusivity is not offered in Pakistan's constitution, which restricts people of other religions from holding top posts.
When Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Gujarat to cast his vote in the urban body polls, learnt of the poor voter, instead of heading home he went to the Motera stadium, organised a control room, and was on the phone with practically everybody assigned duty on the ground: MPs, MLAs and BJP office-bearers. His single commandment was to check the voter list and phone or personally get people to the booths, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
The decision to pull out of the contest and support BJP was taken in the larger interests of Telangana and Hyderabad, a Jana Sena release quoted Kalyan as saying.
The Hyderabad-based AIMIM and Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Aazad's outfit Azad Samaj Party (ASP) on Friday announced they will contest on 100 wards in the minority and Dalit-dominated pockets of the city.
Whichever combination finally emerges, Malegaon could set a record for being a town run neither by Maharashtra's ruling Mahayuti, nor by the Opposition MVA, but by a combination of two or three Muslim parties.
'What must the Indian Air Force pilots -- who destroyed terror bases in Pakistan using BrahMos missiles' -- be thinking?'
As many as 74,44,260 voters would exercise their franchise using ballot papers to elect their representatives in the 150-ward Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, according to official data.
Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who took oath as minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet on Sunday, weathered political storms and intra-party bickering before he could successfully establish himself as a firebrand BJP leader in Telangana.
BJP's resurgent performance prompted the state leadership to describe it as a 'saffron strike', while party in-charge Bhupendar Yadav said it has now emerged as the 'only alternative' to the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led regional dispensation with people accepting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's brand of good governance.
A resolution to this effect was passed at the party's general body meeting in Hyderabad, party sources said.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh, where assembly polls are due by 2023-end, are not attaching much importance to the presence of the AAP and the AIMIM citing the largely bipolar politics of the state.
For the first 90 days of 2021, from January 5 onwards, one Union minister will visit one district in Tamil Nadu every week till the assembly election.
"If municipal elections can take place in Hyderabad and Assam, why not here. The situation is worse than Kashmir and is similar to that of Iran and Iraq. Didi (Mamata Banerjee) has proved that West Bengal's law and order is not conducive to go for polls," he said while addressing a party meeting in Kolkata.
The parties which lost their registration also include Revolutionary Party of India-Khobragade faction, led by Uttam Khobragade and Uttar Pradesh-based Peace Party.
'They take each and every election with seriousness.' 'No other political party has that kind of cadre who is strongly aligned with the reason, motto and ideology of their party.'
While Asaduddin was booked for his alleged involvement in the attack on Congress MLC Shabbir Ali on Tuesday, a case was filed against Akbaruddin after his followers allegedly assaulted M K Mahender, a BJP civic poll candidate, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) V Satyanarayana said.
In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
All the parties fielded women candidates after the Lucknow mayoral seat was reserved for women.
For the Stalin government to win back the confidence of voters ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, post-flooding restoration works, their speed and efficacy would be closely watched, and not just by the political Opposition, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP has incorporated caste as a significant component of its politics.
Bhim denotes Dalit icon Bhimrao Ambedkar, while Mim denotes the letter 'M' in the Urdu alphabet; the party used the slogan effectively in the 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
Godhra is one of the 14 seats which the AIMIM is contesting in the next month's elections to the 182-member Gujarat assembly.
Shah has already appealed to the protesting farmers to shift to the Burari ground in the national capital to stage their protests and said the Centre was ready to hold discussions with them as soon as they move to the designated place.
Amit Shah believes Bandi Sanjay Kumar is 'single-handedly' capable of unseating the TRS government in the December 2023 assembly election and there is no need for the BJP's central leaders to jump into the Telangana scene.
Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu alleged that by not allowing Parliament to function, Congress was not stopping the Modi government but "creating hurdles" in the country's development.
Accusing Owaisi brothers of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's of "poisoning" the minds of Muslims, Shiv Sena today said the Hyderabad-based outfit would be defeated in the Aurangabad municipal polls the same way it was routed in the recently-held Bandra bypoll.
Has Owaisi's MIM become an albatross for Imtiaz Jaleel, former journalist and the party's candidate in Aurangabad?
A party demanding meaningful change seems to have touched a deep chord among voters, says Sreelatha Menon
The results for the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Telangana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tripura were announced on Tuesday.
Despite a strong anti-corruption mood, where election costs are seen as the driver for graft, politicians don't change their spots. Unsurprisingly, this trend of unleashing cash can be expected to continue in this Lok Sabha elections too, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
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