With more than 31 lakh voters, Malkajgiri is one of the biggest Parliamentary constituencies in the country. Touted as the Seemandhra pocket of Telangana State, the constituency is said to have about 90 per cent literate urban middle class electors. Despite Malkajgiri electorate dominated by settlers; the TRS party won six of seven Assembly segments in 2018.
It also accommodates small pockets of rural population on the peripheral areas. Nearly 70 per cent of the electorate is dominated by the natives of Andhra Pradesh but settled in Hyderabad for several decades now.
It comprises seven Assembly segments: Medchal, Secunderabad Cantonment (SC), Malkajgiri, Qutbullapur, Kukatpally, Uppal and LB Nagar. Its uniqueness lies in its cosmopolitan outlook and heterogeneity. The cosmopolitan outlook can be attributed to the presence of a large chunk of voters who have migrated from other States, including AP, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and northern States, especially due to employees of railways and defense establishments.
With a large part of the electorate comprising young and educated voters, lack of development and unemployment are woes that find traction in Malkajgiri constituency. During the 2014 elections, the constituency saw nearly 30 candidates, one of the highest number of candidates contesting from a single constituency in the country.
During the delimitation of constituencies in 2008, the constituency was represented by the then Union Minister Sarve Satyanarayana. He was re-elected to the Parliament for a second consecutive term in 2009. He won the seat defeating TDP candidate T Bheemsen with a majority of 93,326 votes (7.74 per cent).
In the 2014 elections, Ch Malla Reddy was elected to the Lok Sabha from the TDP. He was polled 5,23,356 votes and secured a majority of 28,166 votes against TRS candidate Mynampally Hanumantha Rao who secured 4,95,190 votes.
However, he shifted to the ruling TRS in 2016. With the TRS leadership asking him to contest from Medchal Assembly constituency, Malla Reddy resigned to his MP seat recently and won from Medchal before he went on to become a Minister in the State Cabinet.
Of the seven Assembly segments, TRS candidates M Sudheer Reddy and C Kanaka Reddy won from Medchal and Malkajgiri constituencies respectively in 2014 Assembly polls. Qutbullapur MLA KP Vivekanand, Kutkatpally MLA M Krishna Rao and Secunderabad Cantonment MLA G Sayanna – all won on a TDP ticket, joined the TRS subsequently. While R Krishnaiah had won from LB Nagar on a TDP ticket, BJP candidate NVVS Prabhakar emerged victorious from Uppal seat.
With two MLAs in its kitty and three others joining it, the strength of the TRS reached five MLAs in Malkajgiri Parliamentary constituency after 2014 elections. The ruling party strengthened itself further and secured all but one of the seven Assembly segments in the recent Assembly elections. Of total 88 seats secured by the TRS, Malkajgiri constituency itself contributed six MLAs to the ruling party, indicating an increasing inclination among voters, including those who migrated to Hyderabad from other States, towards the TRS.
Against total valid votes of 16,11,752 polled for the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, around 15,89,959 valid votes were polled in 2018 Assembly elections. Despite a joint fight put up by the candidates of Prajakutami —Congress, TDP, TJS and CPI — TRS candidates secured 8,26,956 votes i.e. 52.01 per cent of total valid votes polled during the 2018 Assembly polls, registering a whopping 40 per cent increase in the vote share. During the corresponding period, the combined vote share of Prajakutami has come down from 7,56,886 (46.96 per cent) votes to a mere 5,08,604 (31.99 per cent) votes.#KhabarLive
