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Congress wins but TDP rises

The results of the two-phase Panchayat elections in Andhra Pradesh have provided comfort to both the ruling Congress party and the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP). They have come as a huge embarrassment to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which has been virtually wiped out on its home turf. The elections could be held only after the State Government got a Division Bench of the High Court to overturn the order of a single judge staying the elections on a spate of petitions questioning the electoral rolls prepared by the State Election Commission (SEC). Though the elections are over and the Congress has emerged the clear winner, the remarks of the High Court on the electoral rolls cry for attention. The SEC will do well to revise the rolls and ensure that they covered all voters. The nature of the results has enabled both the Congress and the TDP to claim victory. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy has called it an "endorsement of our policies," while TDP leader N. Chandrababu Naidu draws comfort from two factors — victory in the Telangana region and alliance with the CPI(M). He considers his party's performance better than expected. The Congress has done very well by winning a majority in 18 out of the 22 Zilla Parishads — it has made a clean sweep of coastal Andhra. The TDP has captured only three ZPs, while it is still not clear which way Khammam will go. In terms of Mandal Parishads, the TDP has fared much better than expected, winning 38 per cent of the territorial seats, but the Congress won handsomely in the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies, bagging over 60 per cent of them.

Though the Congress may consider the results a vindication of its policies and programmes, it has reasons to ponder over their actual implementation. Its Government has to ensure that the massive irrigation projects it has launched are completed on schedule and the regions they cover really derive benefits from them. Similarly, the complaints on the `free power to farmers' scheme have been quite vociferous in some areas, providing the TDP with enough ammunition to take on the Government. The move by the CPI(M) to not only distance itself from the Congress, but also align with the TDP, may well represent pointers to the future. But the CPI remains with the Congress. The party that is facing a real crisis is the TRS, and its MP from Adilabad, T Madhusudan Reddy, has already sent in his resignation to the party chief owning moral responsibility for its defeat in his area. He has said that the TRS suffered the debacle because it had failed to deliver on its promise of a separate Telangana. But the TDP, which won both Adilabad and Ranga Reddy regions, was clearly against the division of Andhra Pradesh. The Panchayat elections have really given all these parties a chance to test their strength on the ground and enough food for thought and remedial action. Now that the dust has settled, the elected representatives should work towards improving governance at the grass-roots level.

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