The much-awaited Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections were finally organized on Thursday, crowning the new Mayor and Deputy Mayor of the city.
Elected as the first citizen of Hyderabad, Mayor is Gadwal Vijayalakshmi who hails from TRS followed by Mote Sri Latha Sobhan Reddy as the Deputy Mayor.
The newly elected Mayor has earlier held the position of a Corporator from the Banjara Hills division twice. She is also the daughter of TRS senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP K Keshava rao.
Apart from this, Ms Vijayalakshmi belongs to the BC (Munurukapu) caste which political experts say was the prime reason for her election as the Mayor by the party.
The Deputy Mayor, meanwhile, was previously the Corporator of Tarnaka.
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As for the election event, TRS had put forward their nomination with G Vijayalakshmi who was met with BJP’s Veeranagari Radha, corporator of RK Puram. However, Vijayalakshmi of TRS won the post through the election that was based on show of hands. AIMIM too inclined in favour of TRS and voted for Vijayalakshmi.
Soon after the announcement of the Mayor from TRS, BJP corporators started raising slogans saying, ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and eventually had to be controlled by the presiding officer who asked them to allow the peace and decorum to prevail during the elections.
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The newly elected Mayor of Hyderabad expressed her gratitude and spoke about the issue of women safety in the city. Ms Vijayalakshmi said, “I feel very proud, I thank both CM KCR and KTR for choosing two women. There are many things I want to concentrate on. As a woman, I promise complete safety for women in Hyderabad. Be it roads, drainage, etc there are many issues. We will address all these issues. I have a vision.”
Meanwhile, TRS brought Tarnaka corporator Sri Latha Sobhan Reddy as their candidate while BJP nominated Shanker Yadav. The show of hands proved TRS’s victory with AIMIM, this time too, voting for the candidate of TRS
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Thanking the party and others involved in electing her, Ms. Reddy spoke about her happiness and said, “I am thankful to Chief Minister KCR, KTR and my MLA for choosing me. I have been working since the beginning and because of this, I have been chosen today. I am really happy.”
On Wednesday, GHMC’s newly elected 149 corporators took their oath as the presiding officer, Shwetha Mohanthy delivered the same to them. Elected as the election observer, Sandeep Singh Sutania monitored the proceedings.
The first part of the event was the oath-taking ceremony where every corporator was offered to take their oath in any of the 4 languages- English, Urdu, Hindi or Telugu. After this, they had to sign the documents and submit it to the officials in charge of it.
The process of taking the oath began with those who chose Telugu, followed by Urdu opters and then Hindi. Those who chose English went last.
Following this, the presiding officer requested the corporators to proceed for a break to come back for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor elections at 12.30 pm.
The elections conducted in December 2020 for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation witnessed TRS winning 56 divisions from the 150 seats while BJP secured the second position and took 48 divisions to its name and AIMIM got hold of 44 seats.
