Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has firmly put behind the acrimonious election campaign and seems to be ardently wooing the AIMIM and its minority electorate with plans to fast-track long-pending development projects centred around the Old City area of Hyderabad.
Politically, Reddy has made the right noises so far by choosing to make AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi the Pro-tem Speaker – an acknowledgment of the latter’s seniority in the Legislative Assembly. After Gaddam Prasad Kumar took the Speaker’s chair on Thursday, Reddy went on record to thank Akbaruddin Owaisi as well as his elder brother and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for their support.
Interestingly, AIMIM MLAs, including Akbaruddin Owaisi, attended the first review meeting convened by the Chief Minister on the development of Hyderabad since it involved two long-pending development works in the Old City area – the extension of the Metro connectivity between Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS) and Falaknuma and the development of the Musi riverfront. This was a huge departure from the previous BRS government.
Although the BRS and the AIMIM maintained friendly relations, a long-standing grievance against the KCR-led government was that it had completely neglected the development of the Old City while concentrating on the rest of Hyderabad, particularly the West, which comprise the IT hub and financial district and is dotted with swanky roads and state-of-the-art buildings.
The new Chief Minister, however, asked officials to keep the extension of the Metro network from Raidurgam to Airport on hold while pointing out that the existing Outer Ring Road provided excellent connectivity and, as such, alternate routes should be explored. He also asked the Metro officials to complete the extension of the Metro from MGBS to Faluknuma. There were rumours that the real estate lobby was firmly behind the BRS during the Assembly elections with a particular interest in the jacking up of land prices in adjoining areas due to Metro connectivity. The decision to scrap the project will hurt those owning land in these areas (read benami) and win goodwill among the residents of the Old City area. He also instructed officials to take up the development of the Musi riverfront to further revenue generating plans.
Revanth Reddy’s overtures to the AIMIM have not gone unnoticed. Although the AIMIM jeered him as “RSS Tillu” due to his ABVP antecedents during campaign, he seemed to have moved on since the Congress does not have a single MLA from Hyderabad. According to political analysts, the AIMIM has always maintained friendly relations with the party in power, except for brief intervals when the TDP was at the helm and under the Congress’s N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
“The AIMIM has always backed the ruling party subject to the condition that it should support them in the seven seats held by them in the Old City area,” said CR Gowri Shankar, a political analyst. The AIMIM has shored up the BRS in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation board when the party failed to get a majority in the civic election. Now, it remains to be seen how the equation between the Congress government in Telangana and the AIMIM affects the latter in its quest for expansion pan India where the Congress had accused it of splitting minority votes to benefit the BJP.