Elections for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation unwittingly exposed who are heroes and zeroes among the political parties that are fighting to gain control over the prestigious governing body of Hyderabad. Hyderabad is synonymous with Telangana. Minus Hyderabad Telangana is insignificant.
Controlling Hyderabad administration is equal to controlling the entire state as the revenues of capital city of Telangana far exceed that of rest of Telangana. The elections to GHMC is being held at a time when the city has acquired global reputation for its software, pharma, defence establishments. This is the only city in India where large swathes of government land available in and around. The city has vast resources at its command. Hyderabad means physical asset. So, capturing Hyderabad Metropolitan body will establish the party firmly in the politics of the state. There is the ambitious program latent in the fight to capture GHMC. This is evident in the way the parties are conducting the campaign for February 2, 2016 polling. Except the national parties, all regional parties, which are main players, have made the family members of the respective party presidents star campaigners so as not to allow anybody stake claim over the victory, in case the party wins.
In Hyderabad, like anywhere else, regional parties are family enterprises. Families control them. In GHMC electioneering as well this hierarchy- family and outsider- is distinctly evident. Members of the families are heroes and all other leaders zeroes and foot soldiers. For example, from TRS, Party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao’s son K T Ramarao ( state’s IT minister) and daughter Kavitha (Nizambad MP) are made star-campaigners. In Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Nara Lokesh , son of party boss and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, is the sole in-charge of the campaign. The campaign affair of the third major regional party, MIM, is taken care of by party’s only leaders Asaduddin Owaisi and Akabaruddin Owaisi. Except Owaisi brothers, no other leader is seen canvassing for the party candidates in 60 divisions in Hyderabad. From the selection to campaign, Owaisis’ writ alone runs large in the party. Similarly, in TRS as well the campaign arrangement is planned in such a way that KT Ramarao and Kavitha alone dominate the scene. In TDP, even though Telangana TDP has many able leaders, party sees nobody as eligible to lead the organization in elections, except the young, inexperienced Lokesh. Win or defeat is not the question- who inherit the leadership of the party next governs the appointment of ‘hero’ of the party.
All other leaders, including MPs, MLAs, MLCs, senior functionaries, party vice presidents, general secretaries etc. are not supposed to be seen as stars and meant to remain as cheer leaders. Even though they are also leaders of considerable stature and playing key role in the campaign, their area of operation is always a far away constituency, which media also do not think worthwhile to cover. Media too is not ready to recognize them as leaders. By giving prominence to the Kin of party bosses, media helps foist a notion that none, but these sons and daughters of bosses, matter in their respective parties. Their speeches, gestures, tours alone deserve to be highlighted. For example, many cabinet ministers from Andhra Pradesh are campaigning for TDP -BJP candidates. There activities are either no-news or pushed to the spaces which are not easily recognizable by the readers in the newspapers. Channels either ignore or give less priority to these leaders. Volumes of reports, analyses and opinions are being produced about the sons and daughters of owners of regional party enterprises.
BJP and Congress, being national parties, are aliens to this phenomenon.
