If in doubt, contesting from two seats appears to be the strategy of politicians. So this election season, more leaders are adopting a risk mitigation strategy as they try to improve their winning chances.
Despite all his bravado, Prajarajyam Party (PRP) founder and supremo Chiranjeevi is contesting for two seats, followed by Devender Goud and PRP ally ‘Mana Party’ leader Kasani Gnaneshwar.
Not that this is a new phenomenon. Sometime back, N T Rama Rao of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) appeared invincible, until he was trounced. The confident Rama Rao who was then the chief minister, not only advanced the polls in 1989 but, in a move that shocked people, also contested from three assembly seats - Hindupur, Gudivada and Kalwakurthy, a symbolic move to represent the three regions Rayalaseema, Andhra and Telangana in the state.
At that time, not only was the TDP ousted from power, but NTR who had never tasted electoral defeat was humbled in Kalwakurthy, in Mahbubnagar district. J Chittaranjan Das of the Congress, who trounced NTR there earned the epithet ‘giant killer’.
Das, a former minister in the Congress government and had been lying low in recent years, has now landed in the PRP, which saw it fit to allot him the party’s ticket for the same Kalwakurthy constituency this time. The ‘giant killer’ will now face the sitting Congress legislator Y Kista Reddy to stake his claim to the seat again.
Like NTR then, two senior leaders of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) also chose to contest from two seats each in the 2004 elections. TRS president K Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR) contested from the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat and theSiddipet assembly seat in Medak district. He wonboth but chose to give up Siddipet.
However, an over-confident Ale Narendra got a shock when he was trounced in the Bhongir assembly constituency by Uma Madhava Reddy of the TDP. As a saving grace, he won the Medak Lok Sabha constituency. “So overconfident was Narendra that he hardly toured the Bhongir constituency,” a TRS leader recalled.
Though Chiranjeevi is confident, he is still contesting the Tirupati and Palakol assembly seats. “It’s sheer strategy,” a PRP leader claimed.
Adopting a so-called strategy, former minister T Devender Goud is contesting from the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat and also the Ibrahimpatnam Assembly seat. Goud had earlier represented the Medchal assembly constituency which no longer exists, post delimitation.
Similarly Kasani Gnaneshwar, once a TDP leader, started his ‘Mana Party’ and recently formed an alliance with the PRP. Though lacking the stature of either NTR or Chiranjeevi, he too is indulging in the luxury of contesting from two seats. He has filed his nominations for the Chevella Lok Sabha seat and Qutbullapur assembly seat.
However this time round, KCR has taken a ‘dangerous decision’ to contest from only one seat, and has even moved from his pocket borough to contest the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha seat, not quite a TRS bastion. Is that wise?
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