The former India captain is himself a star campaigner for the Congress.
NEW DELHI
Promising development and improvement in law and order situation, former India cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin has padded up and taken guard on the electoral pitch for a match with Maganti Gopinath, sitting BRS legislator and film producer, in the Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency in Telangana where voting is scheduled to take place on November 30. Results will be out on December 3.
The former India skipper, who joined the Congress in 2009 before winning the Lok Sabha elections from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, is himself a star campaigner for the Congress. His appeal goes beyond his constituency and is seen as a national icon, especially by Muslim voters who call the shots in the seat. This is also visible during his campaign as voters, especially the youth, scramble to take selfies with him.
“I am not bothered about what other candidates are doing… the people of the constituency are with me,” he said, while going door-to-door to seek votes. He claimed that the BJP is a non-force in the area and known for its high-profile residents, Jubilee Hills is home to film stars and celebrities like Chiranjeevi and Prabhas. The constituency has a mix of upscale neighbourhoods and some slums. The problem of poor civic amenities is a persistent one in the slums. The posh areas, however, suffer from water logging and poor drainage for rain water. Excessive concretisation in the area often results in flooding and water stagnation during heavy rains.
Jubilee Hills is a general category seat with a third of the voters being Muslims. The constituency is situated in Hyderabad district and is one of the 7 Assembly segments of Secunderabad Parliament Seat. Being an urban area seat the voting percentage normally remains low. In 2018, the voting percentage on the seat was 45.59% as against the state-wide turnout of 75.74%.
SC voters at Jubilee Hills assembly is approximately 21,071 which is around 5.93% as per 2011 Census. ST voters at Jubilee Hills assembly is approximately 4,975 which is around 1.4% as per 2011 Census.
Gopinath, BRS leader and a film producer who is a two-time legislator from the constituency, has been re-nominated by the party. He has claimed to have improved the power situation in the constituency during his tenure. The AIMIM, which is known to be in friendly terms with the ruling BRS, has fielded Mohammad Rashed Farazuddin setting the stage for splitting of Muslim votes on the seat.
In the last Assembly elections BRS candidate Gopinath beat P Vishnuvardhan Reddy of the Congress by 16,004 voters. With 68,979 voters, Gopinath got 44.3% votes, while the Congress candidate got 34.02% share with 52,975 votes.
The BJP came a poor fourth on the seat in 2018. Its candidate Ravula Srihar Reddy got 8,517 votes with 5.47 per cent vote share. By contesting from the Jubilee Hills seat, Azharuddin is aiming for a bigger role in state. Congress’ politics. Azharuddin had become one of the working presidents of the Telangana Congress in 2018.
Earlier, Jubilee Hills’ independent candidate Naveen Yadav joined the Congress and pledged support for Mohammed Azharuddin. Yadav donned the Congress colours in the presence of TPCC chief Revanth Reddy. Yadav had got 12.09 per cent vote share (18817 votes) in the 2018 which was almost double of what the BJP candidate could manage on this seat.
The total number of voters in 119 Assembly constituencies of Telangana stands at 3.06 crore. Out of them, over 1.53 crore voters are male and 1.52 crore are female. The number is against the 2.99 crore voters in the final rolls published during March this year. As per the latest draft rolls for the 2nd Special Summary Revision, published in all assembly constituencies, there were about 8.31 lakh and 1.82 lakh deletions made in the past few months taking the total number to 3.06 crore.