Telangana: Parties already in campaign mode

HYDERABAD: TRS president and CM K Chandrasekhar Rao will make a whirlwind tour of the state to campaign for party candidates for the forthcoming LS polls. The party's backroom boys are preparing a tour schedule for KCR, wherein he will address public meetings. As a prelude to that, TRS working president KT Rama Rao began his meetings with senior leaders and party workers at the Lok Sabha constituency level.


Though it was announced on Sunday that polls in Telangana would be held on April 11, political parties got into campaign mode even before the announcement. There is much at stake for major players. Though the results of the December 2018 assembly polls can be taken to be indicative of the shape of things to come, no party is taking things for granted even if TRS had swept the polls to form the government once again in the state.

For strategic reasons, the TRS party president got the assembly polls delinked from the Lok Sabha polls. By advancing the assembly polls, his idea was to dominate the political scene, arguing that two national parties - Congress and BJP - had little role to play. But when the Election Commission sought the opinions on all political parties if simultaneous polls for assemblies and Lok Sabha should be held across the country, the TRS said it was in favour of that. "We gave our opinion. If the EC had taken a decision on simultaneous polls, we would have stuck to it but since that did not happen, we chose to go for early assembly polls," KCR had said.

After the elections, KCR created a post of party working president and appointed his son and former minister K T Rama Rao. It practically is now the responsibility of KTR to win 16 out of the 17 LS seats for TRS. MIM is expected to retain the Hyderabad seat. KTR has so far held party workers meetings in Karimnagar, Medak, Chevella and Malkajgiri.

BJP too started early. Though only one candidate won in the 2018 elections, BJP is striving to garner support for the LS elections. Its president Amit Shah held a meeting in Nizamabad on March 6, launching the party's campaign. Congress president Rahul Gandhi addressed a public meeting at Shamshabad in the Chevella parliamentary constituency on March 9.

There is much at stake particularly for KCR as he is hoping to play an important role in government formation at the Centre after the LS polls. "The Federal Front will win up to 100 seats," Rama Rao said. Though there is no clarity on the parties in the federal front, KCR says it would be non-Congress and non-BJP parties.

Of the 17 seats in Telangana, TRS won 11 seats in the 2014 elections, Congress won two, MIM, YSRCP, TDP and BJP bagged one each.

However, after the 2014 LS elections, Makajgiri MP Ch Malla Reddy of TDP, P Srinivas Reddy of Khammam, who won as YSRCP candidate, and Nalgonda MP G Sukhendar Reddy of Congress, joined the TRS. This made the strength of TRS to go up to 14. Congress is only left with the Nagarkurnool seat held by Nandi Yellaiah. The BJP's Bandaru Dattatreya from Secunderabad and MIM's Asaduddin Owaisi from Hyderabad are the other members.