STATE OF PLAY
Telangana’s political space is now abuzz with activity, thanks to the diverse strategies being tried out by the three major political parties — the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The spurt in political activity, planned or part of a long-drawn political process, has set the election season into motion though Assembly polls are 18 months away.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is keeping the early election lamp burning through every conceivable action, announcing a slew of schemes and issuing long-pending job notifications to pacify several sections that he feels are slipping out of his control.
Opposition parties have stepped on the gas too creating a confrontative atmosphere to keep up the momentum. Undoubtedly, both the Congress and the BJP have injected the idea of early polls into people’s minds irrespective of the reality.
The Congress, which was warming up, has now got into battle mode as it plans to conduct its biggest ever meeting — farmers’ struggle meet — in Warangal on May 6 involving Rahul Gandhi. The visit is expected to spur political activity further and set the tone for a full-fledged battle.
The BJP is not far behind. It is in high spirits with its recent win in the Huzurabad bypoll where Eatala Rajender, once the right-hand man of Mr. Rao, defeated the TRS.
The State BJP chief Bandi Sanjay’s Praja Sangrama Yatra, a walkathon covering the entire State, showcases the party’s urgency to join the early elections battle or get ready for the plunge when the situation demands. The BJP too, like the Congress, is banking on the ‘anti-incumbency’ against the two terms of TRS rule.
But the sudden entry of political strategist Prashant Kishor into Telangana just changed the contours of politics and political equations. Even as he engages Congress at the national level to cobble up an anti-BJP front, the organisation Mr. Kishor was earlier associated with, the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) has simultaneously agreed to work with the TRS in Telangana where the Congress is its bitter rival. Mr. Kishor himself had marathon meetings with Mr. Rao and other TRS leaders. The TRS working president and Mr. Rao’s son, K.T. Rama Rao, has officially confirmed that the party has engaged the services of I-PAC.
This association has set off the speculative factories to manufacture numerous theories including a pact between the Congress and the TRS, unimaginable so far and indigestible for the Congress cadre. The Congress, brutally battered by defections and electoral losses, is slowly showing signs of revival in recent times. But it is now engulfed in chaos and confusion down the line, though the AICC in-charge of Telangana Congress, Manickam Tagore categorically rejected the possibility of an electoral tie-up with the TRS.
As the Congress leadership wades through these uncertain tidal waves hitting them hard in the form of Prashant Kishor, the BJP is happy.
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It is already spinning theories around it while the Congress is trying hard to dismiss them. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief A. Revanth Reddy is repeatedly rejecting this theory to keep the cadre’s spirit up, citing that Prashant Kishor, in his report to the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, has not mentioned any tie-up with TRS in Telangana, though he suggested similar association in other States.
An interesting political scenario is unfolding in Telangana with the entry of one man, and that too much before he has started his work.
ravikanth.ramasayam@thehindu.co.in
