LORD, HAVE MERC

The All-India Majlis-eIttehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is seeking to outgrow its reputation of being just a ghettoblaster confined to its seven strongholds in the Old City

-  SIDDHANT JUMDE

Greener Pastures 

This time, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi is planning an ingress into the 24 assembly constituencies in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation region—those like Jubilee Hills, Musheerabad and Rajendranagar have a decent sprinkling of Muslim voters. His recent national outings have often queered the pitch for rivals from the ‘secular’ fronts. In Telangana, with his tacit pact with the BRS, which way will he make the ball swing?

He's the sort of man who believes in luck, and Husnabad has indeed been lucky for Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief K. Chandrashekar Rao, a.k.a. KCR. He launched his last two poll campaigns from this constituency, and won both times. In fact, he calls the local BRS MLA, Vodithela Satish, "Lakshmi putrudu" (Goddess Laskhmi's son) for that reason. This time, KCR knows he could really do with a visitation from Lady Fortune. So it was no surprise that his cavalcade landed in this Telangana outback-as the crow flies, 130-odd km northeast of capital Hyderabad-on October 15 to launch the party's poll campaign. It will be a barnstorming tour across his realm, with some 42 rallies sprinkled over a state nearly 1.15 lakh sq. km in area, till November 9. That's just the first phase-a wide-angle sweep, if you will. KCR will zoom in on select constituencies once nominations close on November 10 and take his chariot right to the frontlines in more clearly defined micro-battlezones.