In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, along with other top BJP leaders will campaign for local polls for the first time in Hyderabad.

The list of star campaigners of the BJP in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation also includes party’s national chief JP Nadda and UP CM Yogi Adityanath along with other top leaders. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls are due on December 1.

Sources say the BJP is pushing hard because it senses an opportunity in Telangana and a vacuum in the opposition space. After the bifurcation of the state, the Congress, decimated in Andhra Pradesh, was considerably weakened in Telangana in the 2014 elections.

BJP leaders believe the municipal elections are the first step towards challenging the TRS. The next stop is the assembly election in 2023 and then the general election in 2024.

Eager to increase its footprint in the south, the BJP sees the Hyderabad municipal election as its gateway beyond Karnataka, the only southern state where it is in power, a NDTV report added.

In the past two days, the party’s firebrand MP Tejasvi Surya has delivered hugely controversial speeches in which he has called Asaduddin Owaisi an avatar of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He also accused Mr Owaisi of bringing to Hyderabad “Rohingya Muslims instead of development”.

Mr Owaisi shot back at a public meeting: “These people need to have some biryani which will bring them back to their senses.”

With the campaign swirling around Pakistan, surgical strikes and biryani, the stakes are high in Hyderabad’s local polls and it will be interesting to see who has the last laugh after the results of the polls are announced.