Will the trend continue?

Hyderabad: Will the trend that was witnessed in the counting of votes in municipal and ZPTC, MPTC elections continue in the counting slated to be held on the 16th to decide the winners in Assembly and Lok Sabha polls? TDP-BJP alliance might post a win in the general election as well in continuation of its triumph in municipal elections and ZPTC and MPTC elections. But the difference in votes and seats would be further reduced, according to observers. The gap between the TDP and the YSRCP in municipal elections was more than that of the elections for ZPTCs and MPTCs.

The TDP was intact and raring to go at the time of municipal elections. Its leaders and cadres worked hard. All the aspirants for Assembly and Lok Sabha tickets had strained themselves to get the party candidates elected. The YSRCP, on the other hand, had no organisational strength. It was not prepared for the local body elections. The party is directed from Hyderabad and the local leaders were not empowered to take independent decisions. The party candidates did not spend money in municipal elections. While polling in municipal elections was held on March 30, the votes for ZPTC and MPTC candidates were cast on April 11. The candidates contesting for Assembly and Lok Sabha seats were asked to spend on the candidates fighting the ZPTC and MPTC elections. That may be one of the reasons for a somewhat better performance by YSRCP in ZPTC and MPTC elections. In the Assembly elections, the YSRCP candidates spent money on par with their rivals.

Polling for the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats was held almost a month after the ZPTC and MPTC elections. In the meantime, there were problems cropped up in the TDP. The party’s attempt to have a tie-up with the BJP ran into rough weather. Chandrababu Naidu, chief of TDP, had to use all his resourcefulness to get the alliance in place. There were demonstrations by TDP leaders against the tie-up with the BJP. He could quell the rebellion with great difficulty. Naidu had to concede 13 Assembly and four Lok Sabha seats to the BJP as part of seat sharing agreement. He was not happy with the candidates selected by the BJP. He spoke to Narendra Modi and Prakash Javdekar, a senior leader of the BJP, was rushed to Hyderabad to buy peace with Naidu. Another factor that has to be taken into consideration is the way Naidu had distributed the tickets. A lot of Congress leaders were preferred in the eleventh hour to the TDP aspirants. This had resulted in heartburning among the TDP leaders. There were some problems in selecting the right candidates at a number of places. For instance, in East Godavari district, there are three strong TDP leaders who are in the fray as rebels. Varma in Pithapuram, Mudragada Padmanabham in Pathipadu and Kannababu in Kakinada (Rural) did not get the TDP tickets and they entered the fray as independents. Every one of the three would either win or defeat the official TDP candidates.

However, these lapses may not cost the TDP many seats since Naidu had more than made up by way of announcement of welfare measures in an aggressive way. He was the first to announce the waiver of farm loans and DWACRA group loans. YS Jaganmohan Reddy also promised to waive loans taken by women thrift groups but did not talk about the farm loans. He, instead, spoke about creating a consolidated fund to go to the rescue of the farmers in distress. Add to this the tempo generated as a result of the campaign by Narendra Modi, BJP’s PM candidate and Pawan Kalyan, film hero. In the elections for municipalities and Panchayat Raj bodies, it was not YS Jaganmohan Reddy versus Chandrababu Naidu or YS Jaganmohan Reddy versus Narendra Modi. Local issues must have influenced the voters in the first two elections. The contest for Assembly and Lok Sabha seats involves State and national issues. Naidu with his track record of development and building mega city like Cyberabad, may have been preferred by the electorate. The argument that Naidu in Seemandhra and Modi in Delhi would be a good combination to develop the new State also must have clicked. Taking all aspects into consideration, observers opine that the tally of YSRCP may not be far less than that of TDP although the latter is expected to bag enough seats to form the first government in Seemandhra.

Touch and go in Telangana

The Modi-Kalyan combination that helped the BJP-TDP alliance in Seemandhra was understood to have harmed it in Telangana. The way Pawan Kalyan spoke about TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR) must have helped the latter in getting more votes. TRS, which ended up in second place both on Monday and Tuesday in the results of municipal and Panchayat elections, is expected to fare better in Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. Except one agency, all the organisations that conducted exit polls had given more Lok Sabha seats to the TRS than the Congress. Besides the help rendered by Pawan Kalyan through his rude language, KCR himself undertook a whirlwind tour addressing ten meetings a day hopping by helicopter throughout Telangana. That was the time when Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Rural Development, took up the responsibility of leading the Congress campaign in the region. Jairam with all his charm is no match for KCR in election campaign. These developments that took place in the last lap of the campaign were expected to tilt the scales in favour of the TRS in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. But the way the TDP had swept the ZPTC and MPTC elections in Gajwel Assembly constituency where KCR is a candidate, does not augur well for the TRS. The party had done well only in Siddipet, Dubbaka and Narasapur Asssembly constituencies in Medak district. It won only half of the ZPTCs and MPTS in Medak district conceding the rest to the Congress and the TDP which scored only in Gajwel constituency on account of the strength of the local leader, Pratap Reddy, who is pitted against KCR. The TRS did well only in north Telangana in local body elections. The Congress, which did well both in municipal and Panchayat elections, is expecting the same trend in the Assembly polls. It is going to be touch and go in Telangana when the results are announced on Friday.