Hyderabad to witness multi-cornered battle fo LS

The battle for the prestigious Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency is intensifying by the day.The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president and sitting MP from the city Asaduddin Owaisi filed his nomination papers with an impressive show of strength.

His rival, Telugu Desam candidate Zahed Ali Khan will file the nomination papers on Monday, the last day for the file of nominations for the first phase. Earlier Zahed Ali Khan was to contest as an independent, to secure the support as many opposition parties as possible. But the Telugu Desam Party refused to support him unless he fights the election on its ticket. Accepting TDP's condition was the only option for him after the Praja Rajyam party fielded a Muslim lady advocate Fatima Begum. Now Zahed Ali Khan will have support of the Telanagana Rashtriya Samiti, Communist Party of India and CPI-M who are the partners of the TDP in the Grand Alliance.

Owaisi started in a huge procession of thousands of MIM workers from party headquarters Darussalam to Nampally. The workers, carrying the green flags of MIM were shouting slogans hailing Asad's leadership. Leaving the procession behind at Nampally cross roads, Owaisi along with a few senior leaders of the party went to the office of the district collector Hyderabad at Abids to file his nomination

Later talking to the reporters Owaisi exuded confidence that he will win the Hyderabad seat with a bigger margin than 2004 when he had won the seat with a margin of 1.45 lakhs. "The MIM is going to almost double its strength in the state assembly", he said.

Hyderabad is going to see a multi cornered contest. While the main fight would be between Asad and Zahed Ali Khan, the Congress has fielded Lakshma Goud and PRP has nominated Fatima Begum. The Bharatiya Janata Party is yet to field its candidate.

Meanwhile the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are going to see the largest number of Muslim candidates ever this time. While Congress has fielded only one candidate Qasim Khan from Hindupur, the TDP has filed two --N Mohammed Farooq from Nandyal and Zahed Ali Khan from Hyderabad. The TRS has given ticket to one Muslim candidate Syed Yusuf Ali from Zaheerabad.

The Praja Rajyam party has fielded the largest number of Muslims. The 18 candidates announced by the party so far, include four Muslims --former Minister Khaleel Basha from Kadapa against Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's son Jagan Mohan Reddy, Syed Saheb from Narsaraopeta, Mohammed Mansoor from Anantapur and Fatima Begum from Hyderabad. As the party has to decided still 24 candidates for Lok Sabha, it is likely to field one or two more Muslim candidates.

As far as Assembly elections are concerned Congress has fielded the highest number of 11 candidates, followed by PRP with five. The TDP which is yet to announce all the candidates has so far fielded two Muslim candidates, TRS has fielded two Muslim candidates and CPI-M has one Muslim candidate. The strength of Muslims in PRP is likely to go up further considerably. The number of Congress' Muslim candidate went up by one with the party fielding former MLA Yunus Sultan from Khammam in the final list.