Hyderabad: As 2018 will be the stepping stone to the next state assembly elections, the New Year is likely to witness some political churning.
Speculations that either the state’s ruling party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), or Prime Minister Narendar Modi will opt for a snap poll by the end of the year, will only add fuel to the frenzy of activities by all the major political parties.
Though the term of the present assembly is scheduled to end in May 2019, TRS, the main opposition Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are all set to get into the election mode soon.
The politicos of different hues were already busy analysing their strengths and weaknesses and trying to identify issues to help them mobilise support.
With the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) badly marginalised by the spate of defections and resignations, and the BJP trying to step on the pedal, the next elections were likely to be largely a tri-corner fight featuring TRS, Congress and the BJP.
TRS is trying to be a step ahead of the challenge with the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), leaving no stone unturned to woo all sections of society.
No day passes without KCR announcing one welfare scheme or the other — the latest being the implementation of 24-hour free power supply to the farmers — the opposition is left gasping in the race to identify the issues on which to challenge the ruling party.
KCR and his tech-savvy son, K. Taraka Rama Rao, have also succeeded in strengthening TRS’ hold over the urban areas, especially Hyderabad city. Hyderabad continues to enjoy the status of a happening city, specially in the IT sector thanks to various initiatives of KCR government. The launch of Hyderabad Metro recently and planned opening of the second phase mid-2018 has only added to the momentum of growth in the state capital.
During the past three-and-a-half years of his rule KCR has showered numerous sops for the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities and Brahmins. He also laid emphasis on the welfare of farmers and empowerment of women leaving hardly any issue for the opposition to exploit. Starting with the waiver of farm loans, improving irrigation facilities and implementing new projects and now free power supply, the TRS government is going all-out to keep farmers in good humour. One more step in this direction will be a subsidy of Rs8,000 (Dh460) per acre (0.40 hectare) in the days to come.
However, the Congress party is seeing a glimmer of hope in the growing disenchantment among the unemployed youth and espousing their cause, highlighting the failure of KCR in filling the vacancies in government service.
Here Congress was also trying to make a common cause with the Telangana Joint Action Committee convener Kodandaram Reddy who was valiantly taking on KCR on various issues. In case he launches a political party Congress is keen to have a tie up or understanding with him.
State Congress president Uttam Kumar Reddy has promised that upon coming into power Congress will introduce unemployment allowance of Rs3,000 per month for the jobless youth.
Another issues that has turned contentious is the reservation quota for Muslims. To fulfil its election promise the TRS has got the necessary legislation passed in the state assembly increasing the quota for backward Muslims to 12 per cent from the current 4 per cent. But with the refusal of the Modi government at the centre to give nod to the bill, it was unlikely to get implemented any time soon. Senior state Congress leader Mohammad Ali Shabbir has been aggressively raising the point. “[The] chief minister is cheating the Muslim community in the name of reservations,” he said.
However, it’s not like TRS has no allies; politically influential Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and TRS have good ties.
In the caste matrix, the Reddys with about 8 per cent population continue to be the mainstay of the Congress party and in all likelihood a Reddy will be the chief Ministerial face of the party.
The growing dispute between the two groups of tribal population- Lambada vs others — over sharing the benefits of reservation can pose another challenge to the ruling party.
However, many Congress leaders privately agree that the party was still not up to the challenge from KCR and feel that only a coalition of all the anti-KCR forces can change the situation. But apart from Kodandaram the party was unlikely to find a willing or suitable partner. The party cannot imagine touching the BJP even with a barge poll. TDP has been reduced to a shell and is unlikely to make any big difference even if it agrees to join hands with Congress.
On the other hand, BJP, which was dreaming of springing a surprise and forming its own government was solely dependent on Brand Modi and Machiavellian planning of party president Amit Shah.
However all the efforts of the saffron party to stir the pot in Telangana have come to a naught so far. They were hopeful that more visits by Prime Minister Modi and Shah in the next few months would revive the morale of the cadre and galvanise the part.
The party’s campaign is likely to be based on the claim that most of the welfare and development works in the state were due to the Centre’s funds and the credit should go to Modi. The party was also itching to launch an aggressive campaign to brand KCR regime as pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu by highlighting the reservation bill and frequent statements of KCR praising the Nizams of Hyderabad.
The saffron party had managed to win only one Lok Sabha and five assembly seats in 2014, at the peak of Modi wave. All its victories came only in and around Hyderabad stressing the point that the BJP was essentially an urban party.
On the ground the biggest challenge for the BJP is weak organisation, lack of cadres in all parts of the state and the absence of a strong charismatic leader. While the party was present in the north Telangana region, in other districts it will be an uphill task to make it a fighting fit machine before the elections. All its efforts to woo some strong leaders from Congress or TRS have proved futile. On the contrary, KCR was capable of throwing some big surprises by launching another round of “Operation Attraction” aimed at the leaders of Congress and the BJP.
