Battle of biryani in Huzurabad

Hyderabad: The battle of ballot for the present has become battle for biryani in Huzurabad as both the TRS and the BJP have turned it into a prestige fight to win the election. This requires mobilisation of its rank and file to take up massive campaign activities. This is where biryani comes into picture and it is in great demand.

Ever since the poll schedule has been announced, the demand for chicken and mutton biryani has doubled. The local hotels were flooding with bulk orders for biryani from the leaders. The political parties have to supply biryani packets every day to the workers along with some cash to carry out campaigning activities.

There are five mandals, including two municipal towns and around 90 villages in the Huzurabad constituency. Each party was hiring at least 5,000 to 6,000 workers for the poll campaign. This requires 3,000 kg of biryani. Local hotels have the capacity to supply only 2,000 kg of non-vegetarian recipes every day.

Competition for the campaign has reached the kitchens of the restaurants too. Sometimes, senior leaders call up the hotel managements and order them not to sell biryani to their rival parties.

"There more than 70 biryani sale points in the constituency and every sales counter was receiving huge orders one day or two days in advance," said Sudheer, owner of Annapurna Biryani point in Jammikunta town.

The Hans India found that each biryani plate weighing 1 kg costs Rs 180 to Rs 200. The demand for chicken biryani is more since the mutton is costlier. Sometimes hotel managements are also divided on party lines and supplying biryani to their favourite parties first, said Sudheer.

The political parties have also constituted special teams whose responsibility is to buy biryani and organise food for the workers.

It is estimated that each party was spending at least Rs 2 lakh on biryani every day. The polls have come as a boon for the hotels and it is also providing employment to local workers though temporarily. Even women are being hired to help the biryani chefs.

It has almost become a round-the-clock kitchen, Sudheer added.Raw chicken sale centres in the constituency were also open all through the day and supplying white meat to the hotels. Besides, liquor sales have also gone up. Each wine shop was registering a sale of Rs 10 lakh per day as against Rs 5 lakh earlier, the traders claim.