KCR still pushing for early polls

If the Assembly elections are held early, before the scheduled date, as proposed by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, it is a matter of speculation in political circles whether the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti will create history by winning, or follow past precedent by losing to the Opposition.

Despite this, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is pushing for early elections.

According to the Election Commission schedule, the TS government completes its term on June 8, 2019, and elections are proposed in the months between May and June 2019. At the Centre, the NDA government led by the BJP will complete its term on June 3, 2019, and elections are scheduled between April and May 2019. The BJP may go in for Lok Sabha elections earlier, in November or December 2018 and Mr Rao is minded to do likewise, holding Assembly elections along with Lok Sabha elections.

The late N.T. Rama Rao had floated the Telugu Desam Party in 1982 and was getting a huge response, which is what impelled the Congress government to hold the elections early, before NTR gained further popularity. The plan backfired badly with the Telugu Desam winning the Assembly elections just eight months after it came into existence.

In 1989, the then Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao advanced the Assembly elections to coincide with the Lok Sabha elections, but once again it was a miscalculation and the Congress returned to power.

In 2004, the Telugu Desam government headed by N. Chandrababu Naidu went in for early elections. Mr Naidu was hurt in the Alipiri bomb blast, seen as an assassination attempt by the People’s War Group, on October 1, 2003, and the TD thought if it held elections six months earlier, the ‘sympathy’ factor would work for the party and return it to power. That did not happen and the TD lost power as the Congress made a comeback after more than a decade out of power.