By M H Ahssan
For the first time in 25 years, Andhra Pradesh is going to witness a close triangular contest in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, scheduled to be held in two phases on April 16 and 23.
The formation of Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) by popular filmstar Chiranjeevi has changed the political scenario in the state where the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have been the main contenders for power for the past two-and-a-half decades.
Chiranjeevi is currently holding roadshows across the state and, if public response is any indication, he is likely to make heavy inroads into the vote bank of the two leading parties.
There is also a major shift in the electoral alliances with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India -Marxist (CPM) now joining the TDP to form ‘Maha Kootami’ (Grand Alliance) to take on the Congress and the PRP, which are set to fight it out alone. In the 2004 elections, the TRS and the two Left parties had an alliance with the Congress.
Despite frantic efforts, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not forge an alliance with any party and it is also entering the electoral fray without any partners. However, for the first time, the saffron party has decided to contest for all the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Lok Satta Party, founded by former IAS officer Jayaprakash Narayan, is also entering the electoral fray in the state for the first time.
The TRS, which is fighting for separate statehood for Telangana, has distanced itself from the Congress when the latter dodged the Telangana issue for the past five years.
Nevertheless, like in the last elections, the demand for a separate Telangana state has emerged as a key issue with a potential to influence the outcome of the elections to be held next month.
The Telangana region spread over 10 of the 23 districts in the state accounts for 119 out of 294 Assembly seats and 17 out of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies. It will go to polls in the first phase along with north coastal Andhra region, which has 37 Assembly and five Lok Sabha segments.
The second phase of elections would be held in Rayalaseema and south coastal Andhra, which together have 140 Assembly and 20 Lok Sabha constituencies.
The grand alliance headed by the TDP has an edge in the Telangana region due to the presence of TRS. This despite the fact that there had been a substantial erosion in the public support to the TRS over the past five years. The party received a major setback in the byelections held in Telangana last year following en masse resignation of TRS legislators.
Chiranjeevi, who hails from north coastal Andhra, is expected to do well in that belt. PRP’s position in the Telangana has also improved slightly with the merger of Nava Telangana Party, formed by former TDP minister T Devender Goud, with the party just a few days before the announcement of the election schedule
The faction-ridden Rayalaseema region, comprising four districts, has been a traditional stronghold of the Congress. Incidentally, all the three potential candidates for the chief ministership of the state, YS Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congress, N Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP and Chiranjeevi are going to contest from this region.
With keen contest on the cards both for Lok Sabha and Assembly , the main parties in the fray announced a slew of sops to woo the electorate.
The TDP, waging a do-or-die battle to regain power, promised to give television sets to all the poor families free of cost. The party’s draft manifesto also envisages a ‘cash transfer scheme’ (CTS ) under which money will be transferred directly to the accounts poor families. While the poorest of the poor will be given Rs 2,000 per month, the poor families will get Rs 1,500 and the middleclass Rs 1,000. The party also promised free power to farmers and households and free rice up to 25 kg a month to the below poverty line families.
Naidu, who subscribed to the concept of “no free lunches” during the 2004 elections, has now earned the sobriquet of “all free Babu.” The former poster boy of reforms feels that his promises can be fulfilled though the CTS alone, considering that there are 20 million white ration cardholders in the state, this is estimated to cost around Rs 36,000 crore per annum, while the state’s budget for 2009-10 stood at Rs 1,05,144 crore. He, however, clarified that the CTS was only a concept he floated and was open to a debate on the proposed scheme.
Not to be left behind, the fledgling PRP promised distribution of 2.5 acres of wet or 5 acres of dry land to the poor, one million jobs in 1,000 days, free power to farmers for 10 hours a day, unemployment allowance of Rs 1,000 a month for the youth, reservations for economically backward classes, pension and insurance for farmers and physically-challenged and a monthly oldage pension of Rs 500.
The Congress is already implementing various welfare schemes including free power to farmers, Rs 2-a-kg rice scheme, housing for weaker sections, health insurance and low cost loans to poor and self-help groups.
Doles apart, corruption has become the main plank of the election campaign of the grand alliance, while the PRP is focusing on the twin aspects of change and social justice. On the other hand, Congress is banking on its development agenda.
According to political observers, the coming Assembly elections are crucial for the long-term survival of the TDP, while the Lok Sabha polls in the state are crucial for the Congress for forming the next government at the Centre. This could be one of the reasons behind Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s two-day tour of the state a few days before the announcement of the election schedule.
In the last elections, Congress had been successful in sending 29 candidates from the state to the Lok Sabha. The party intends to better this performance in the current elections but it seems to be facing an uphill task though there are no visible anti-incumbancy feelings among the electorate at present.
Five parties headed by the Congress formed an alliance in the 2004 polls, which helped the party to corner nearly 70 per cent of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Today, three of these parties shifted their alliance to TDP and only All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is sailing with the Congress. The five parties together secured 52.54 per cent of the total votes polled.
The figures indicate that the TRS and the two Left parties, which are now sailing with the TDP, together accounted for 9.21 per cent. Though the voting pattern may not be the same during the current Lok Sabha elections, the loss of the three parties vote bank is likely to dent the prospects of the Congress candidates this time.
Despite an alliance with three parties, the going for TDP also may not be smooth. The four-party alliance will not have a common manifesto. Among the alliance partners, CPM says that it is still committed for an integrated state, while the other three parties are going to campaign for separate statehood for Telangana. The seat-sharing process is also not yet complete and is turning out to be an irritant for Naidu with the allies demanding more seats than what they had contested last time.
For the PRP, the Election Commission declining to allot a common symbol for its candidate has come as a major setback. The party has approached the state high court in this regard.
Whatever maybe the outcome of the polls, there seems to be bitter battle ahead among the contestants.
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