Hyderabad: Hyderabad may finally see GHMC elections after the final voter rolls come out on November 30. Media reports suggest the government is preparing for polls in late December or early January. The State Election Commission, however, has not announced a schedule. Meanwhile, the city has now gone nearly nine months without a single corporator.
The administration also saw a change at the top last week. HMDA Metropolitan Commissioner Sarfaraz Ahmad reportedly took additional charge as special officer for the city’s three corporations. He replaced senior IAS officer Jayesh Ranjan, who sought voluntary retirement.
Residents now take complaints straight to zonal officers or grievance apps. But welfare associations say the system breaks down at the edges. One corporation may own a street while another owns the drain beside it. So on October 31, GHMC and Malkajgiri teams jointly inspected parts of Begumpet.
Article 243U of the Constitution requires municipal polls before a council’s term ends. For Hyderabad, that deadline passed in February. Many residents of newly added areas have never voted in GHMC elections.
GHMC elections stalled since the February split
The council finished its five-year term on February 10, 2026. The next day, the state government split the expanded civic body into three. It created a restructured GHMC, the Cyberabad Municipal Corporation and the Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation.
The split followed an expansion that merged 27 peripheral urban local bodies into the city. As a result, the civic area grew to about 2,053 sq km and 300 wards. The new GHMC has 150 wards across six zones. Cyberabad covers 76 wards, while Malkajgiri covers 74.
The outgoing council approved a Rs 11,460 crore budget for 2026-27. However, officials have not published how much each new body has spent since February. A writ petition also challenges the split in the Telangana High Court.
Opposition parties called the move undemocratic from day one. BRS legislator K P Vivekananda said the government could have held these polls with other municipal elections. BJP MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar alleged the split aimed to please the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). The Congress government, by contrast, says a fast-growing metro needs smaller civic bodies.
