Rumblings inside TDP after election drubbing in Telangana

VIJAYAWADA: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who will face assembly elections in barely six months, has a lesson or two to learn from his one-time deputy and now bitter rival, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, a TDP leader said.

Rao, better known as KCR, led his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) back to power this week with a landslide victory in only the second assembly elections in India’s youngest state, carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. The Maha Kootami (grand alliance) of the Congress, TDP, Communist Party of India and Telangana Jana Samithi failed to stop the TRS. “Kcrreturnedtopoweron the plank of welfare schemes, focusing on rural distress and keeping social engineering by his side. We need to take a leaf out of KCR’S book if we want to stage a comeback,” said a senior TDP leader. He cited KCR’S largesse — from free sheep to the Yadava community and fish feed to fishermen to the Rytu Bandhu and Rytu Bheema programmes targeted at farmers, Mission Kakatiya, aimed at restoring minor irrigation tanks and lakes, and Mission Bhagiradha, aimed at ensuring drinking water — that reaped electoral dividends , especially in rural Telangana.

For Naidu, 69, victory in the 2019 assembly elections is crucial to enable him to pass the baton to his son and perceived successor, son, N Lokesh. After a decade’s political hibernation, TDP won power in truncated Andhra Pradesh in 2014 after a close fight with the YSR Congress. The vote share difference was a mere 2.7 percentage points.

The TRS took away TDP’S backward classes vote bank after KCR fell out with Naidu. Backward classes constitute around 50% of the total population in both Andhra and Telangana states and had been the TDP’S main support base right from its inception. This was due to the party’s founder NT Rama Rao empowering them through 50% reservation in local bodies. The party suffered a dent in its backward classes vote bank after Naidu took over the reins from his mentor and father-in-law Rama Rao, leading to its defeat at the hands of the Congress in 2004 and 2009, claims Angirekula Varaprasad, president of the Andhra Pradesh Backward Classes Welfare Association.

The election in 2019 is likely to see Naidu fight a tough triangular battle with YSR Congress, led by Rajasekhar Reddy’s son , YS Jaganmohan Reddy, and the Jana Sena of film star, Pawan community, Pawan Kalyan supported Naidu in 2014, but as an opposition leader in next year’s election, he is likely to dent TDP’S vote bank.