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Telangana takes a back seat

The drubbing the Telangana Rashtriya Samithi has taken in the byelections to 18 Assembly and four Parliament seats in Andhra Pradesh speaks volumes about the party’s popular base. It was a huge miscalculation on the part of TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao to have got his party legislators and Members of the Lok Sabha resign en masse and force a fresh election. He evidently reckoned that the popular sentiment in favour of statehood for Telangana — the TRS’s single political plank — was so strong that his party nominees could easily romp home again. As it turned out, however, the TRS could retain only seven of the 16 Assembly seats and two of the four Lok Sabha seats it held — even that only with considerably reduced vote margins. Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao himself saw his victory margin drop drastically to a meagre 15,000 votes from two lakhs. The ruling Congress and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party have stolen a march, picking seven and six seats respectively in the Assembly and one seat each in the Lok Sabha, with the TRS finishing third in many constituencies. For his part, Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao has owned responsibility for the party’s poor showing. Clearly, the TRS is in dire straits, given that this debacle has come on top of the desertions it suffered since its exit from the government in 2005, with 10 of its 26 MLAs breaking ranks; the party leadership’s petition seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law is pending with the Speaker.

The outcome of this round of byelections can only be seen as a vote for development. Though — true to its political agenda — the TRS held it out as a referendum on the separate statehood issue, it will be wrong to conclude from the party’s dismal performance that such a demand would disappear. After all, most candidates across the political spectrum recognised the prevalence of such a sentiment and never spoke against it. Of course, neither the Congress nor the TDP at the organisational level openly supported the demand. Even matinee idol Chiranjeevi, who is all set to start a political party, apparently put off the launch just to avoid taking a definitive stand on the Telangana issue. In the wake of the TRS’s electoral reverses, the Congress and the TDP may be more confident in preparing for the general elections due in about a year. As for the statehood demand, it can be expected to take the back seat for now. However, the Congress will do well to focus sharply on the development of some of the very backward areas in the Telangana region so that there is no room for the people to get carried away by the demand for a separate State.

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