The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi has suffered heavy losses in the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation even as the Bharatiya Janata Party made significant gains.

According to the latest information, the TRS, which won 99 divisions in the 150-member civic body in 2016 polls, has slipped to 55 divisions, but emerged as the single largest party. The BJP has won 48 divisions and the MIM 42.

Congress won only two seats. Pradesh Congress Committee President Uttam Kumar Reddy put in his papers, taking moral responsibility for the humiliating losses.

Besides the directly elected 150 corporators, the civic body has 52 ex-officio members who can cast their vote in the election to the mayor post. Even after factoring in the 38 ex-officio members that it has, the TRS will still fall short of the magic figure of 102 to retain power.

TRS falls short

It will have to seek the support of MIM if it wants to retain power. The BJP has been alleging that the TRS has a tie-up with the MIM. The ruling party, however, denied having any alliance with the MIM and contested in all the 150 divisions.

The election assumed significance as it is viewed as a mid-term review of the performance of the State government. As many as 34.50 lakh people out of the total electorate of 75 lakh voters cast their votes in the polling held on December 1.

Eyeing an opportunity, the BJP marshalled its top national leaders, including Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, JP Nadda, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar and Tejasvi Surya in the campaign.

‘Marked ballots’

Earlier in the day, the Telangana High Court has stalled a notification by Telangana State Election Commission (SEC) that lets marking on ballot papers by pen or a stamp indicating the booth number be counted.

The SEC’s Thursday night order, which said ballots with markings by pen or any other stamping that indicated booth numbers would be considered for counting, sparked a row. The BJP moved the High Court, challenging the order.

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