30

Nov

Assembly Pools: Will Telangana throw a surprise.

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 30 November 2023

Pradeep Mathur

Election results are always difficult to predict. As such our electorate is composed of so many different social and cultural groups that it is impossible to find a common denominator of their voting behaviour. Then over the years our voters have become very shrewd and they do not reveal their mind to those who want to assess poll prospects of the contending candidates.
However, the media reports and the opinions of election observers indicate an edge for the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and an evenly fought battle in Rajasthan in which either of the two main contending parties - the Congress and the BJP -- may win the mandate. In Mizoram BJP is clearly out of scene after what has been happening in neighbouring Manipur.
Of the five states that have gone to the polls  in this round, the last major electoral contest before the Lok Sabha elections next year, perhaps the most interesting to watch is Telangana. For one in Telangana it is not a straight Congress- BJP fight like what we have witnessed in the three cow belt states of M.P, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. There is a third and most important party in the form of ruling Bharat Rashtra  Samathi (BRS) led by a popular leader in K. Chandrashekar  Rao, popularly known as KCR,   who has been in the vanguard of a successful movement for a separate state of Telangana. Both the Congress and the BJP are trying to replace him in the seat of power.
For Prime Minister Modi’s BJP it is very important to put up a good show in Telangana. If BJP performs poorly in Telangana it will practically be wiped out of South India. Of the five South Indian states BJP is on the margin is the three states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. It lost Karnataka to the Congress recently. If the party miserably loses in Telangana it will ironically be a BJP Mukt Dakshin Bharat for a party that talked of a Congress Mukt Bharat nine years ago.
It is to retain its hold in South India that the BJP is putting  all its might in the Telangana election campaign. Prime Minister Modi spent quite some time in Telangana and held several rallies and road shows attacking bitterly, often distastefully, BJP’s opponents, especially the Congress. Besides the Prime Minister, the BJP also fielded all of its big leaders like Home Minister Amit Shah, Party President J.P. Nadda and Chief Ministers of U.P. and Assam in the election campaign. 
Despite a hectic campaign the BJP is nowhere in sight of coming to power in Telangana. Perhaps the party leadership knows this. They will be more than happy if the party gets 10 to 15 seats is the 119- member state assembly and  in  the situation of a hung assembly  comes to play the role of a king maker.
By all accounts the Congress with do much better than the BJP. In face the real contest in Telangana is between the ruling BRS and a resurgent Congress. The BJP is likely to end up as a poor third force, how poor only the results will tell.
With two consecutive terms since the formation of a separate state of Telangana in the years 2014 and 2018, Mr K.C.R is firmly in the saddle. In the last assembly election in the year 2018 his B.R.S, then know as T.R.S won 88 out of 119 seats. But his government is now facing an anti- incumbency wave and election observers say that people is the state are looking for a change.
Will the Congress be the voters choice is difficult to say. It is being said that backed up by Owaisi’s Majilis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen( MIM) both the ruling B.R.S. and the BJP have reached a clandestine  understanding to stop the Congress. Logically it looks correct because a regional party like BRS or Owaisi’s MIM will have no future if the Congress is able to come to power. Therefore, when the Congress leaders say that they are fighting against the joint front of the ruling B.R.S., BJP and Owaisi’s Muslim outfit they are not wrong. Owaisi has long been suspected as the BJP’s B team and there are reports that the BJP finances him to divide Opposition votes. This is what Owaisi has done in Maharashtra, Bihar and Gujarat with considerable success.
At one stage the BJP government’s machinery moved very fast against Telangana Chief Minister’s daughter Her arrest looked eminent. But then things cooled down and this has been taken as an indicator by many observers  as a secret deal between KCR and the BJP’s leaders in the Centre.
Is the Congress really on such a strong wicket that the ruling party which got a vote share of 47% and 88 out of 119 seats in the previous election, is so scared of it? And is Prime Minister Modi’s BJP rates the Congress prospects so high that forgetting all of its dislike of chief minister it is inclined to have a deal with him ? 
The answer to these questions seems to be in affirmative. And there are three main reasons for it. One is Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra of last year around this time during which in 16 days he covered 375 km and 19 assembly constituencies attracting large crowds that came out to greet him. The massive turn-out of people was quite unexpected and it really surprised Rahul’s friends and foes alike.
The second factor was elevation of Mallikarjun Kharge as the Congress president. Belonging to the neighbouring Karnataka, Kharge yields considerable  influence in Telangana, especially among the Dalits and tribal sections of society.
The third factor is the disillusionment of the state’s considerable Muslim minority from Owaisi who claims to be their sole representative. Many Muslim leaders and intellectuals not only suspect him to be hand- in- glove with the BJP but also disapprove of his brand of politics as being detrimental to Muslim interests. The Congress can, therefore, expect a big slice of the Muslim vote bank.
However, the biggest factor that may help Congress is the fact that the party is in the DNA of the people of Telangana. They stood by the Congress even when in the post emergency elections in 1977 the party was wiped out in the entire north India. Prime minister Indira Gandhi who was defeated on her home turf in Rae Bareli got re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Medak, one of the 33 districts of what is Telangana today. Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi supported the movement for a separate state of Telangana and the state  came into existence largely because of her support.Now the womenfolk of Telangana, old and not so old, see the reflection of Indira Amma in Priyanka Gandhi who has vigorously campaigned in the present elections.
Therefore, a surprise verdict in Telangana favouring the Congress would in fact be no surprise.
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