As the election campaign picks pace in Telangana and just three days left for the nominations to start, the haze around the agenda with which they are reaching out to the people is getting clear.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has taken it upon himself to galvanise the cadre of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi and rejuvenate the candidates’ campaign with a series of meetings covering three constituencies every day. A noticeable change in KCR’s campaign is the fear he is instilling among the people on voting out his party. This is a clear deviation from the development aspect that the party had started its campaign a month ago.
Telangana’s stable governance will be lost forever if the Congress is voted to power and all the major schemes would come to an end, is what is being propagated by KCR in his speeches. The Chief Minister reminds the public that he is the creator of the Rythu Bandhu scheme and it would end if his government lost.
The CM is also rekindling the sentiment of 24-hour power supply to the farm sector, another flagship programme of the BRS government, issuing a veiled threat to the people that they would lose the facility forever if Congress comes to power. Playing on the sentiments, he is recalling a statement made by TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy in the USA that three hours of power was enough to cultivate three acres of land, and asking the people if they needed such a situation.
Repeatedly asking the people in the public meetings whether they wish the continuance of Rythu Bandhu and 24-hour power supply, KCR is urging the people to reply with a loud ‘yes’ trying to project that the Congress would end these facilities. Targeting the dissidents in Congress who lost out in the ticket race, KCR is not hesitating to embrace his strong critics in the Congress. It reflected the way former ministers Ponnala Lakshmaiah and Nagam Janardhan Reddy were given a grand entry into the BRS.
He is not shying away from invoking the Telangana sentiment. He repeatedly recalls how the Andhra rulers had discriminated against Telangana and his fast unto death changed the course of Telangana agitation. “Let the progress not derail,” he says as he continues to target the Congress.
The Congress party, on the other hand, is banking on the six promises it made to the people by Sonia Gandhi at a public meeting on the city outskirts after the conclusion of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting. While the Congress cadre at the village level is taking the message to every household, the senior leadership led by TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy and CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka are harping on the ‘family rule’ that has taken away the self-respect of the people.
The alleged corruption in the Kaleshwaram project is another favourite punching bag of the Congress leaders as they continue to recall and remind how thousands of crores of rupees were misappropriated by the BRS government and KCR’s family. The recent caving-in of pillars of the Medigadda barrage of the Kaleshwaram project has come in handy for them to claim corruption. TPCC president and the two Congress MPs, Uttam Kumar Reddy and Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, are focussing on the farmers’ plight since their role is critical in the rural sector. ‘Give one chance to Congress’ is the central theme of the party’s campaign.
The BJP remained a slow starter in the campaign but picked up pace with the visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Amit Shah. The party is now trying to woo the Backward Class vote bank taking up the ‘BC CM’ campaign and it still has a month to infuse confidence among the voters. It is still battling with the perception that the party has a secret understanding with the ruling BRS. The continuous exit of leaders from the party is stalling its aggressive campaign.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is only banking on the image of its chief, R.S. Praveen Kumar, as it lacks the organisational structure to compete with the major parties. The AIMIM is quite open about its friendship with the BRS and its chief Asaduddin Owaisi is openly asking the Muslim community to support KCR.
