The Telangana High Court on Monday asked the state election commission (SEC) to not issue the municipal election notification till Tuesday evening. A division bench of the high court comprising of the Chief Justice of the state Justice RS Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy passed the orders while dealing with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy. The Court also directed the SEC to submit election manual, rules and regulations and related material including a copy of the notification before it tomorrow. In his petition , Reddy challenged the election schedule issued by the SEC to conduct the elections to different municipalities and municipal corporations in the state and urged the court to issue directions to reschedule the election notification to hold elections. The court later adjourned the hearing till Tuesday.
Can Congress, BJP stop TRS juggernaut in TS municipal polls on Jan 22?
The schedule for holding elections for municipalities and municipal corporations in Telangana has been released on Monday (today).
The Telangana State Eelection Commission issued the schedule for conduction elections to 120 municipalities and 10 municipal corporations.
The election notification will be issued on January 7, the polling will be held on January 22 and the results will be declared on January 25.
The TRS has showed its dominance in all the elections held in Telangana since the formation of new state in 2014 by wiping out Opposition parties.
Though it suffered minor setback in Lok Sabha polls in May this year by losing 4 seats to BJP and 3 seats to Congress, it made a clean sweep of gram panchayat and zilla/ mandal parishad elections.
However, the big question being raised now is will the opposition parties will be able to stop the TRS juggernaut from rolling at least now in the urban local bodies elections.
The main tussle in municipal polls will be between TRS, Congress and BJP.
These elections are likely to decide who will emerge as the main opposition or alternative to TRS in Telangana in the run up to the 2023 Assembly polls.
The BJP is trying hard to emerge as alternative to TRS by replacing Congress by winning significant seats in municipal polls.
However, the BJP lacks leaders and cadre in majority of the municipalities in Telangana.
For Congress, it will be a ‘do or die battle’ as if it fails to bag even some of the municipalities, it will be the end for road for grand old party in Telangana.
The ruling TRS has already wiped out Congress by engineering defection of its MLAs and MLCs and make them join TRS.
