Pink party manages to rule the roost

The State witnessed many political changes and altercations during this calendar year, but throughout all the changes, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) continued its domination unchallenged in the State politics.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao will successfully complete three years and seven months in the office at the end of December and faces no challenges for the next few months. The ruling party shared good relations with the Centre on the whole and TRS President K Chandrashekar Rao remained a crowd puller in 2017.

The ruling party was able to effectively face the Opposition in the Assembly and was able to answer all the questions raised by Opposition leaders on development and welfare. The government’s steadfast working in implementing and launching the schemes has kept the buss around the TRS intact.

The efforts made by the Chief Minister to attract and engage new sections of the society for united development of the State bore good results for the government and strengthened the TRS base. Through his schemes for different communities, the Chief Minister was able to win over the Muslim community which is the second largest community in the State. The party shifted focus on the Backward Classes during the last month of the year for development and welfare.

After the successful completion of two years and seven months in the office in December 2016, TRS party President focused on strengthening the party organisation. During operation Aakarsh in 2017, many leaders from the Congress and the Telugu Desam party joined the TRS in various districts. The TRS conducted its plenary in April this year and elected a new body for the first time after coming to power. K Chandrashekar Rao was elected as the party president once again.

The plenary was held at Kompally on the outskirts of Hyderabad and witnessed the participation of thousands of party representatives from all parts of the State. The public meeting held at Warangal after the plenary meet was also a grand success.

In order to keep the party leaders active and working for the welfare of the community, the Chief Minister started appointments to nominated posts and several leaders of the party were appointed as chairpersons to various corporations, temple committees and institutions.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao took the construction of irrigation projects as top priority and held a meeting at the Pochampad project in this regard. He time and again maintained that providing irrigation facility to one crore acres of Telangana was high on his agenda.

The party proposed a new scheme in the form of Village Farmer Coordination Committee and intends to give Rs 8000 per acre to each farmer from the next agriculture season, which would boost the party popularity immensely.

On the other hand, the TRS leadership also started to assess the party popularity at the Assembly Constituency level. Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had reportedly conducted surveys on the popularity of the ruling party MLAs among the people. He also disclosed the results and warned several MLAs to improve their performance.

As a preparation to the run up for the next general elections in 2019, the TRS shifted focus on improving its vote bank. On the political front it has been building friendships with the Telugu Desam Party in the State. The Chief Minister’s Anantapur tour triggered speculations on a possible alliance between TRS and TDP for the next elections.

Party has firmed its friendship with MIM. It also tried to persuade leaders of the TDP from emigrating to Congress and instead offered them MLA tickets and other sops to join TRS. Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is firm to see that the Congress does not get the benefit of creation of Telangana.

In all the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government managed to be in the news for its welfare and developmental works and was also surrounded by political tensions. It managed to pull off another year with being public focus for its works.