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KCR’S QUEST
This election again centres around BRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) with political forces and electoral factors rallying around him, or raging against his government for whatever they have done so far in the state. Credited as the leader of the agitation for Telangana statehood, which he managed to achieve by tapping the leadership vacuum the Andhra Pradesh Congress had unexpectedly plunged into due to the untimely death of the then chief minister YS Rajashekhara Reddy, KCR’s party is fighting for a hat-trick victory this time by riding on the administrative record and by trying to buck the incumbency burden. The BRS, which won a landslide 88 seats in the last elections, is banking on its organisational expertise, but it also faces the challenges that grew with the longevity in power.THE COMEBACK CONGRESS
For long, the (united) Andhra Pradesh had been the golden goose of the Congress until the 2014 messy bifurcation of the state redrew the fate-line and turned the surgically-created Telangana and AP states into the party’s electoral barren lands. After more than a decade, the Congress now senses an opening for revival, hoping to bounce back, by projecting it as the most legitimate challenger to the throne. The Telangana Congress, under the leadership of PCC chief Revanth Reddy, spotted its first electoral sprouts when it won three Lok Sabha seats from the state in 2019, after drawing a blank in 2014. The party has unleashed an aggressive campaign, which saw the state Congress inducting defectors from both BJP and BRS by projecting itself as the new happening political destination. While the state Congress is banking on its energy, enthusiasm, incumbency issues of the BRS regime and the cascading effect of the recent Congress victory in neighbouring Karnataka, the party’s comeback challenges include matching the BRS’ organisational machinery in rural belts and in covering a pretty long track
THE SEE-SAW BJP
When the BJP won four seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Telangana, it was seen as the saffron party spotting its second catchment area in the South after its entrenched Karnataka base. With the party’s show in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and other local elections, the impression that it was emerging as the main challenger to BRS was further strengthened. Yet, in this election, the BJP is being seen as the third main party in the ring. The recent serial desertions from the state BJP to the Congress has strengthened the impression that the party has somehow ceded space from being a main challenger to the BRS. The most circulated talk is that the purported ‘go slow’ by the central investigating agencies against some prominent BRS leaders, alleged to have been involved in the Delhi liquor scam, has led to a growing buzz of some kind of a ‘BRS-BJP deal’ ahead of the polls.
Many among the unhappy BRS leaders who joined the Congress, have been originally negotiating for an entry into the BJP. The replacement of the politically-aggressive Bandy Sanjay Kumar with G Kishan Reddy as state BJP chief further strengthened the ‘whiff of a deal’. Yet, the state BJP has cultivated vote-banks and electoral bases with PM Modi leading the blitzkrieg. But opinion is divided on whether the party’s role would be more of a determined challenger to the BRS or that of a divider of the opposition space and anti-incumbency votes with its best bet on playing the tilting factor in the event of a hung verdict.
Factors
The run-up to these elections saw the BRS and Congress raining freebies packaged as social welfare schemes, offering all kind of goodies for key electoral sectors such as youth, women, farmers and the elderly with incentives ranging from promise of gold for brides, dole for unemployed youth, monetary incentives for students, women heads of the families and enhanced financial assistance to farmers and many form of pensions. Given the KCR regime had used its social welfare schemes as a vote-catcher last time, this election means politicians from all sides indulge in competitive ‘auction’ for votes –– with voters merrily craving for more and economists squirming in their seats. The Congress tries to make an election issue of the ‘KCR family rule’ which the BRS tries to balance out by citing the ‘Gandhi dynasty rule’. This election will test whether the statehood plank of BRS still stirs emotions or has run its course. The voting pattern of five critical segments –– the backward communities, Muslims, farmers, women and youth – will be watched out for.(Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)
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Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.