The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Congress' victory march continues

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 14, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Congress' victory march continues

By S. Nagesh Kumar

HYDERABAD, MAY 13. In yet another landslide victory, the Congress-led alliance swept the parliamentary elections by winning 36 out of 42 seats in the State and, in the process, decimating the BJP and reducing the Telugu Desam to a single digit.

As the Congress juggernaut rolled on, several of its candidates won by massive margins, including three with a majority of more than two lakhs each, whereas the TDP winners had to be satisfied with slender leads. In a total reversal of their respective strengths in the dissolved Parliament, the Congress won 29 seats and the TDP five. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), which made an impressive debut with five seats, was invited by the AICC president, Sonia Gandhi, to join the Governments at the Centre and the State. The CPI, the CPI(M) and the MIM won one seat each.

Voters completely dashed the BJP's hopes of consolidating its base in the State by handing out a resounding verdict to all its nine candidates, including three Union Ministers and the party's State president. The fact that a rank newcomer, Anjan Kumar Yadav, could defeat a veteran of several electoral battles such as Bandaru Dattatreya in Secunderabad revealed the extent to which voters were disillusioned with the NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

On the other hand, the CPI had the satisfaction of seeing the victory of its State secretary, Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, and the TRS of its president, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, and senior leader, A. Narendra. Almost all Congress seniors such as N. Janardhana Reddy, S. Jaipal Reddy, G. Venkataswamy and Y. S. Vivekananda Reddy, romped home by huge margins. The TDP had the consolation of winning three out of five seats in North Coastal Andhra, including that of K. Yerran Naidu (Srikakulam) for the fourth time.

Even as the counting trends were unfolding the NDA's debacle, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, and the BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, confabulated with the TDP president, N. Chandrababu Naidu. They are understood to have consulted him before conceding defeat to the Congress.

The TDP chief conceded that the anti-incumbency factor, which had unseated his nine-year-old Government, had worked in the Lok Sabha elections too. He held that the results of the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls showed that though the Governments were ``development and reform-oriented," they had to face the incumbency problem.

Jubilant scenes were witnessed outside the Gandhi Bhavan to celebrate the Congress victory. The Chief Minister-designate, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, said in New Delhi after meeting Ms. Sonia Gandhi that he was "euphoric" as the party had come back to power both at the Centre and the State with its victory march beginning in Andhra Pradesh. The rejection of the Vajpayee-Naidu leadership was so emphatic that in the Lok Sabha elections the Congress combine polled 33.60 lakh more votes than the NDA allies whereas its cumulative lead in the Assembly elections was 31.21 lakhs. This was reflected in the negative swing of a massive 8.23 per cent against the NDA compared to 7.85 per cent in the 2004 Assembly elections. The rival combination improved its vote share by 5.24 per cent even though the Congress' share eroded by 1.24 per cent as it conceded eight seats to the alliance.

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