By Oracle
G Sayanna (Cantonment) and T Devender Goud (Medchal) won on behalf of the Telugu Desam Party from Hyderabad City constituencies in 2004 Assembly elections. Though Danam Nagender technically joined the TDP in the last minute from the Congress and won, he soon resigned and sought a re-election on the Congress ticket, but lost. Effectively, the TDP won just two seats out of 13 seats. If Ibrahimpatnam and Chevella are to be considered part of Hyderabad, these two seats were bagged by CPM and the Congress respectively. The TDP’s Talasani Srinivas Yadav was elected from Secunderabad Assembly seat in a byelection caused due to the resignation of TRS MLA T Padma Rao in 2008.
After the delimitation, Hyderabad has 26 Assembly seats out of which the TDP won two seats – Ibrahimpatnam and Rajendranagar in 2009 Assembly elections.
When it comes to 2014, the TDP won eight seats. However, the swollen strength of seats is due to the support Narendra Modi commanded and the TDP was in alliance with the BJP. As minister K T Rama Rao pointed out, people of Hyderabad grew suspicious about the ability of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi on how it would steer the city to success. Also, the seeds of suspicion sown by N Chandrababu Naidu in the minds of the people that the “divisive TRS” would wreak a havoc with the migrant population. This led to the victory of the TDP in a large number of seats, including Jubilee Hills, Kukatpally, Serilingampally, Ibrahimpatnam, Maheshwaram, Sanathnagar, Rajendra Nagar, and LB Nagar.
Ironically, Chandrababu Naidu mistook this support was for him and his tall claims of building a new Hyderabad. Living in his own fool’s paradise, Naidu began ranting everywhere that he built Hyderabad. Naidu, in fact, never seized from making this tall claim that he built the International airport and Outer Ring Road.
Naidu, as usual, thumped his chest in the recent electioneering and started claiming that he had built Hyderabad. KCR, however, poohpoohed Naidu’s claim and said that Mohammed Quli Qutub Shah would turn in his grave if he had heard this claim.
Soon, Naidu deflected his claim and began saying he had built only Cyberabad. However, his critics culled the physical a mapsottu have of the HITEC city area from Google ad said he had built Cyber Towers, Cyber Pearl and allotted land for Rahejas. The rest of the city began developing ever since during the YSR Regime and KCR regime.
Though Naidu didn’t talk much about Hyderabad Metro Rail, for it actually began running just a year ago because of the efforts of KCR and KTR, he kept on talking about the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and ORR.
However, the foundation stone for the International Airport was laid by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on March 17, 2005, and she only inaugurated the greenfield airport on March 15, 2008. Both occasions were during the YS Rajasekhara Reddy regime.
Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the construction of the magnificent Outer Ring Road on January 3, 2006 and inaugurated the first phase on November 14, 2008 during the same YS Rajasekhara Reddy regime.
After the advent of Telangana Government, the city became a vibrant place with global giants like Apple, Amazon, Google, ZF, Uber, Intel, Salesforce and many others making a beeline. The investments attracted by the TRS Government were many times higher than any regime of earlier times.
This reflected in the elections of 2018. The Telugu Desam Party was decimated in the City, even though it contested at least six seats: Kukatpally, Serilingampally, Sanathnagar; Rajendra Nagar, Malakpet and Ibrahimpatnam. It scored a big zero and was taught a lesson never to meddle with the City again.