Hyderabad: Telangana sentiment and taunting of Andhra Pradesh leaders is back in Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrashekar Rao’s (KCR’s) poll campaign diction, as the ruling party faces a stiff fight with the Congress and BJP in the 30 November Telangana polls.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is vying for a straight third term in the state — a “hat-trick” in the words of its working president K.T. Rama Rao.
However, opinion surveys have indicated a resurgent Congress, with the ABP-C Voter survey last month even predicting more seats for the Congress than the BRS. Telangana Chief Minister KCR is battling 10-year anti-incumbency in the state that was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
Speaking at BRS election rallies in erstwhile Mahbubnagar district earlier this week, the CM blamed the Congress “for delay in statehood approval”, which he said resulted in many Telanganites ending their lives in dejection.
“Despite the Congress’ promise to form Telangana, the state became a reality only after our struggle for 14 years and following my fast unto death deeksha to press for statehood,” KCR said in Devarakadra Monday, referring to his November-December 2009 hunger strike.
The 11-day protest, combined with a student agitation at Hyderabad’s Osmania University and reports of deteriorating law and order, had prompted the UPA-II government to announce the initiation of the process to create Telangana on 9 December, 2009, (coinciding with Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s birthday).
“Have the Congress and BJP ever raised the ‘Jai Telangana’ slogan? What is their contribution to statehood? I had allied with the Congress in 2004 only after they promised to give statehood within a year,” KCR reportedly told the public.
The BRS, then the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, was a UPA-I partner and KCR served as the Union minister for labour and employment, from 2004 to 2006, in the first Manmohan Singh government.
On Monday in Mahbubnagar, the BRS chief went back six decades to remind the public that it was the Congress government which had merged Telangana with Andhra (in 1956) to stress on the point that the region, especially Mahbubnagar area, remained backward under the united Andhra Pradesh state and its ruling parties.
KCR’s banking on Telangana sentiment is not new, having successfully engaged the emotive issue to its potential in the 2014 and 2018 polls. The dependence comes now even as he completes two terms as CM and after having transformed his Telangana Rashtra Samithi to Bharat Rashtra Samithi last year.
The BRS opened offices and appointed a state unit chief in Andhra Pradesh earlier this year, in addition to foraying into Maharashtra.
“If you are on a double road, it is Telangana, single road means Andhra,” KCR said in public meetings in Khammam area bordering Andhra Pradesh last week, asking the locals to gauge the condition of roads, an index for development, in both states, before they go to vote.
The CM also took potshots at Andhra leaders, especially mentioning the last chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh, Kiran Kumar Reddy.
“When Telangana was being formed, some Andhra leaders expressed concern over our survival, saying ‘we don’t know how to administrate’. Kiran Kumar Reddy (making power-point presentations) predicted that Telangana would plunge into darkness if Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated. Look at us now, we have 24-hour power supply. Andhra farmers come to Telangana to sell their paddy as we make immediate payments,” KCR said.
Political observers, however, say the Telangana sentiment would not work for the BRS this time.
“After two terms, a decade of separation, Telangana sentiment has become a non-issue. KCR cannot fool the voters this time by singing the same old song. Our on-ground feedback is that people are not swayed anymore by Telangana sentiment,” Akunuri Murali, a retired IAS and convener of Jago Telangana, a network of civil society groups, told ThePrint.
Jago Telangana is on a statewide campaign to stir voters to exercise their franchise thoughtfully, not influenced by cash, alcohol, sarees or other inducements or caste-religion factors.
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‘Congress-BJP leaders slave to Delhi-Gujarat bosses’
The BRS has been showcasing its “welfare development-oriented governance”, seeking to remind of the benefits that various sections of the public received under its rule, such as Aasara pensions, 2BHK houses, Dalit Bandhu, Rythu Bandhu and Mission Kakatiya schemes, podu land pattas to forest dwellers, as well as the new state secretariat, collectorates in districts, IT towers in tier-2 cities, elevated road corridors, marquee investments in Hyderabad, etc.
The BRS is inserting full front-page ads in newspapers with an exhaustive list of its schemes, programmes and initiatives, as well as ads in TV and news media, asking for votes.
However, in their election speeches lately, KCR, Rama Rao and other BRS leaders have been playing up the Telangana aatma-gouravam (self-respect) card, claiming that the state’s people are their supervisors, “unlike the Congress-BJP leaders who are ghulam (slave) to Delhi-Gujarat bosses”.
The BRS has also targeted the Congress for taking support from YSR Telangana Party chief Y.S. Sharmila — who is sister to Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy — and the BJP for allying with Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party. Both leaders are seen as being from the other side of the political line.
“Anti-Telangana forces, betrayers are joining hands under the BJP-Congress umbrellas,” senior minister Harish Rao, KCR’s nephew, said in Sangareddy a few days ago, indicating that the BRS was attempting to bank on the Telangana sentiment yet again.
Harish also said that Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to sit out the Telangana polls was a ploy to support the Congress by avoiding the anti-incumbency vote split.
The BRS had capitalised on the alliance of the Congress and the TDP in the 2018 state polls, highlighting Naidu as an intruder and a dangerous influence in Telangana affairs. Telangana Congress chief Revanth Reddy, who was formerly a TDP legislator, has been projected as Naidu’s man in the state.
“The BRS could ramp up this campaign as the poll date nears, showing the ‘Andhra bogey’ to create unease among Telangana voters,” Akunuri told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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