Hyderabad: Seven years after the establishment of Telangana as a separate state, the Congress Party is still struggling to regain the lost land in its former fortress.
The defeat of the party in the recent by-election for the Nagarjuna Sagar constituency shows that its prosperity in the state is still declining.
Congress is facing the worst crisis in 2018 due to the departure of a dozen MLAs against the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) since 2018.
The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the main opposition party after its victory in the by-elections in Dubbak, and its impressive performance in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls late last year, only led to the misery of the Congress party increased.
As the central leadership of the big old party took no step to put the house in order in the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), which remained virtually headless after the resignation of Uttam Kumar Reddy in December last year, the party to be in total. disorder.
Political analysts believe that the division of Andhra Pradesh through the granting of statehood to Telangana itself was a political gamble by Congress to arrest the slide in its traditional stronghold. The party hoped to at least keep afloat in Telangana by demanding credit for cutting out the separate state.
However, TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao defied his hopes by rejecting the proposal to merge his party with Congress. He decided to maintain the identity of TRS as a political party and promised to transform the newly created state into ‘Bangaru Telangana’ or a golden Telangana.
KCR, as Rao is commonly known, has succeeded in claiming credit for achieving the goal of a separate state by winning the public mandate. In 2014, elections, just before the formal division of Andhra Pradesh, TRS won 63 seats in the 119-member Telangana Assembly.
The Congress party, which was completely wiped out in Andhra Pradesh due to public outrage over bifurcation, could win 22 seats. However, the party failed to keep its herd together as several of its leaders defected to TRS.
In the 2018 Electoral Assembly, a few months before the term of the Assembly was to end, Congress had a disaster. It could only win 19 seats, although it forged an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and other TRS opponents.
The worst, however, would still come for the party. Even before it could prepare for the Sab Sabha election in 2019, he lost as many as 12 MLAs to the ruling party. Although the party redeemed some pride by winning three Lok Sabha seats, it lost with the diminished power in the Assembly the status of main opposition against Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslim (MIM), a friendly party of TRS.
The party had a huge embarrassment because it could not retain the seat of the Huzurnagar Assembly, where by-elections were needed with the resignation of Uttam Kumar Reddy after his election to Lok Sabha.
The TRS relinquished the seat of Congress because its candidate S. Saidi Reddy was elected by a large margin of more than 43,000 votes. Uttam’s wife N. Padmavathi Reddy scored a far runner-up.
It was in September last year that the AICC named Manickam Tagore as the new award for Telangana, replacing RC Khuntia. However, even his appointment could not stop the party’s move into the state.
The BJP, which became aggressive after its impressive performance in Lok Sabha polls by winning four seats, contributed to the concern of Congress. The saffron party projected itself as the only viable alternative with ‘Mission 2023’.
The BJP has shaken Dubbak off TRS to further consolidate itself. The saffron party, which had hardly any presence in the constituency, pushed the Congress party to the third position.
The Congress party was again humiliated a month later for winning only two seats in the 150-member Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). In its best performance ever in the civilian body, the BJP won 48 seats to deny the TRS a clear majority.
The emergence of BJP as the largest opposition party has sounded alarm bells. Uttam Kumar Reddy resigned the moral responsibility for the defeat as the party leader.
The party received more blows when it lost several leaders to BJP. These include DK Aruna, who was later appointed national vice president of BJP and actress Vijayashanti.
The beleagured party faced another upheaval late last year when its MLA, Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, announced that he would be leaving Congress and joining the BJP soon.
Rajagopal Reddy said the BJP is the only alternative to TRS as the Congress Party is failing to tackle a strong fight.
If Rajagopal Reddy finds himself guilty of the BJP, Congress will leave only five MLAs in the Assembly.
Former Member of Parliament Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who resigned from Congress on the eve of the 2018 election, recently left the Congress Party and is now working to bring non-BJP and non-Congress parties together against TRS bring.
Even after six months, the central leadership of the Congress party did not appoint a new state president. The groupism in the party has emerged with leaders campaigning for the positions that have been held in public to harm the prospects of their opponents.
Fearing that the change of leadership would affect the chances of the party in Nagarjuna Sagar by-election, the supreme order delayed the appointment of Uttam Kumar Reddy’s successor.
The Congress Party is pinning its hopes on this by-election to revive its happiness in the state. Its leaders were confident that senior leader and former minister K. Jana Reddy would take down the seat of TRS to give the party a new hope.
However, Jana Reddy, a 7-year-old MLA, lost by more than 18,000 votes to TRS debutant Nomula Bhagat, whose father Nomula Narasimhaiah defeated Congress leader in 2018.
Narasimhaiah’s death in December last year caused the vacancy and the by-election was held on April 17.
The only consolation for the Congress party was that it took second place, and BJP was third with its candidate forfeiting his deposit.
According to political analysts, although it is not all over for the Congress party, it faces an upside challenge to revive the glory of the country and especially Telangana.
“The deterioration of the party in the central stage has also weakened its position in this state. But it could revive its position, and the upcoming election could be a last chance not to lose further ground, ‘said analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy.
‘Congress still has a fixed voting bank in the country, and even more so in Telangana. “The party must ensure that it does not slip further and lose its loyal cadre to the ruling TRS or the BJP, which aims to at least occupy the position of main opposition in Telangana,” he said.
The analyst says Congress has suffered due to the delay in appointing the new leader and the lack of a popular face. ‘Congress must first decide who the face of the party will be in the next election, and all leaders must bind with the common goal of winning in the state. The party must try to ensure that no more prominent leaders leave Congress, but if there are Trojan horses in its ranks, they must be wiped out sooner rather than later, ‘he added.
Source: The Siasat Daily