Soon after Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Congress struck a deal to contest the Assembly election in Telangana as partners — along with two other regional outfits and the Communist Party of India — the buzz in Hyderabad was that the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) would face a tough opponent, and that the new coalition could topple Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s (KCR) regime. Today, observers still believe in the first but are increasingly veering round to the view that KCR will retain power. Some recent developments have led to this revision in views.
The new and very ambitious alliance meant that many aspirants to tickets from the Congress were adversely hit as the party had to accommodate the TDP and others. Even in seats where the Congress has decided to contest, party dissidents have alleged that the candidates chosen were unsuitable. Some prominent dissidents have formed the aptly named United Rebel Front, and have decided to field candidates in at least 40 constituencies. Experts believe that these rebels have the potential to dent the TDP-Congress chances, and in a close fight, it could impact the alliance’s prospects of securing a majority mark in the Assembly.
There has been more trouble for the Congress. One of its campaign committee members, P Karthik Reddy, quit his post after the Rajendranagar Assembly seat was ceded by the Congress to an ally in the coalition, the TTDP. Although he may not rock the boat just yet, since his mother is one of the contestants from a constituency on the Congress ticket and is a frontrunner in the chief ministerial race, his resentment can affect the Congress’s chances in Rajendranagar and nearby regions. Around the same time that Karthik Reddy expressed his displeasure by resigning from his post, another Congress leader, Gaddam Arvind Reddy, left the party in a huff after being denied a ticket from Mancherial constituency. His decision would be an asset to the TRS. Arvind had been with the TRS during the movement in support of a separate Telangana State.
The other development which could hamper the Congress-TDP’s hopes, relates to minority votes. Two influential Muslim leaders, Abid Rasool Khan and Khaleel-ur-Rehman, have quit the Congress and join the TRS. The Congress had been banking on minority votes by claiming that the TRS had a secret understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that it had always been soft on the Narendra Modi Government in Parliament and outside. The joining of the two Muslim leaders could weaken this accusation.
It is true that the TRS has not blindly opposed the odd regime, unlike other regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress or the Samajwadi Party. It is also a fact that KCR has contemptuously brushed aside Congress president’s claim to leadership and called him foolish. And yet, mindful of the harm that his party could suffer in case the perception of being close to the BJP were to go uncontested, the TRS has been critical of the BJP in the run-up to the election. In an interview to a national daily, KT Rama Rao, the party’s star campaigner and KCR’s son, stated that his party believed that both the Congress and the BJP-led NDA had failed the country, and that it was time for a regional grouping to assume power in New Delhi.
Then there are issues with the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), which is another major partner in the Congress-TDP alliance. Led by an activist with considerable grassroots base, M Kodandaram, the TJS is unhappy with the Congress for having declared candidates in constituencies which the TJS had been keen on contesting from. While Kodandaram has not openly rebelled, he let it be known that if his party so decided, he would contest from Jangaon constituency. The problem is that the Congress is apprehensive because the backward class leaders are not enthusiastic about the TJS there; the backward class community comprises more than 55 per cent of the population in Telangana, and angering them would be fatal for the Congress.
Thus, with every party getting squeezed in the newly-formed anti-BJP/anti-TRS coalition in Telangana, it remains to be seen whether the combine will prove beneficial to its proponents. Or, will it end up actually helping the TRS?
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