The TRS, which swept the 2016 GHMC polls seizing 99 out of 150 wards and looked firmly positioned throughout the day to repeat the feat, was by Friday evening left searching for options to retain the Hyderabad mayor chair.
The BJP has emerged as the biggest gainer in the municipal polls that drew national attention, by winning 48 wards, surpassing its own internal estimates of 40 seats.
The figure marks the massive inroads the saffron party has made in the city of over one crore population, a microcosm of the Telangana state, from its position of four wards five years back.
With the Congress relegated to the fringes after a dismal show here and the Dubbaka by-poll last month, political observers say the Hyderabad success would establish BJP as the principal political challenger to the TRS, aiding it spread its sway statewide for the 2023 assembly polls.
Almost all of the gains made by the BJP in the city are at the expense of the TRS.
In an electoral outcome startling the political circles, analysts and the pollsters, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's party was reduced to 55 seats in the civic body polls dubbed by his son KT Rama Rao “as a gully vs Delhi, Gujarati rule fight.”
KTR's reference was to the gamut of BJP's national leaders including Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath who descended for the short but intense 10 days municipal polls campaign.
Even PM Narendra Modi made a brief appearance in the city three days ahead of the 1 December polls, the visit, however, being to review the Covid-19 vaccine development at the Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech.
On Friday, KTR thanked the voters for positioning the TRS as the single largest party in the GHMC.
The Neredmet ward result, where TRS was leading, was withheld as per the Telangana high court orders, over the use of means other than the swastik stamp to cast votes.
However, going by the tally, political analysts say the TRS has to be dependent on the AIMIM to gain control of the mayor seat.
“(If the councillors and the ex-officio member votes do not add up to their need), it is natural that the AIMIM comes to the TRS's rescue,” political analyst Omer Farooq tells DH.
The TRS, AIMIM were always seen as friends, however, during the campaign course, KTR and other TRS leadership distanced itself from the AIMIM as the BJP's engaged in constant diatribes against “the secret alliance between the two.”
The AIMIM has managed to continue its hold in the old city by winning the same number of 44 wards.
But here too the Asaduddin Owaisi's party had to face a tough fight from the BJP, which had aggressively appealed to its core Hindu vote base by targeting the AIMIM, and promising “surgical strikes on the old city to flush out the Rohingyas, illegal Bangladeshis.”
In the rest of Hyderabad, the contest was between the BJP and the TRS.
The Congress which failed to match the combative campaigning by TRS and BJP was left with two wards like in 2016.
“Some resentment against us and the Congress's half-hearted fight helped the BJP appear as the alternative for people,” a senior TRS leader remarked on “his party's disheartening show.”
The October floods that caused widespread misery in Hyderabad and lapses in the distribution of the Rs 10,000 relief are also believed to have played part in TRS's drubbing.