Assembly elections 2023: Telangana statehood continues to be poll plank for parties

In the 2018 assembly election, KCR’s BRS won a landslide with 88 seats with 46.87% votes

It has been nine years since the state of Telangana was formed. With the assembly polls drawing closer most parties are invoking the statehood issue to sway the voters.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo K Chandrashekar Rao also recently fell back on the Telangana statehood pitch to combat the Congress. In the 2018 Telangana assembly elections, Rao had banked on his government’s welfare schemes. However, with the Congress trying to make a mark in the southern state after its Karnataka win, Rao has been raising the regional pride issue in all his poll rallies.

At his first rally at Palamuru in Mahbubnagar, the Telangana Chief Minister had recalled how during the statehood movement, he had visited every corner of the district to understand the living conditions of the people. Warning people of the disaster a Congress regime would bring, Rao invoked late Telangana ideologue K Jayashankar and recounted the sacrifices of various leaders to gain statehood.

“The Mahbubnagar district was facing hunger and drought, and we wept seeing the suffering. Despite the Krishna river flowing in the district, Andhra rulers had played tricks… laying foundation stones without any progress,” he told Indian Express.

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At Siddipet, KCR recalled that those opposed to the creation of Telangana “spent crores” to defeat BRS candidates. According to him, Siddipet laid the foundation for the success of the Telangana movement.

"The Telangana movement has proved to be a success formula for TRS (now BRS)," political analyst Gouri Shankar told IndiaToday.In.

Even before the poll dates were announced, Congress led the Telangana state war cry and made it a campaign issue. In September this year, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge at a rally said, “Congress helped liberate Telangana. Congress made Telangana a separate state. Those who haven’t done anything keep saying that they have given Independence to the country.”

During his recent visit to the state, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said a separate Telangana state would not have been formed without Sonia Gandhi’s support. “Had Sonia Gandhi not helped, then a separate Telangana would not have been formed,” he said at a rally. However, his remark drew a sharp reaction from BRS.

“…It was Jawaharlal Nehru who forcefully merged us into Andhra Pradesh and killed our aspirations. Then in 1969, when we demanded a separate state, it was Indira Gandhi who killed 369 of our youth in firing...It was Rajiv Gandhi who insulted our Chief Minister who was from the OBC community,” said BRS MLC K Kavitha.

The political scene in Telangana underwent a change in 2000 when Congress MLAs began pushing for statehood. The issue gained further momentum in 2009 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre announced its commitment to the cause. Therefore, the Congress sees an electoral opportunity to claim that it was the main factor behind the formation of a separate Telangana state.

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The BJP has also been saying it was among the foremost to formally ask for a separate Telangana. According to Deccan Chronicle, in 1997, the BJP had passed a resolution at its Andhra Pradesh unit meeting and made a promise of “one vote two states” and ran this slogan in the 1998 elections.

“The question of exploiting it for political gains was never a part of our plan as ours is a national party. It was different for the then-TRS party. Its entire reason for existence was the formation of Telangana and it claimed credit. But the fact remains that it is the BJP which was the first national party to seek Telangana state,” Union minister G Kishan Reddy told Deccan Chronicle. He was the BJP state unit chief of Andhra Pradesh at the time of bifurcation.

In the 2018 assembly election, KCR’s BRS won a landslide with 88 seats with 46.87% votes followed by the Congress (21), AIMIM (7), TDP (2) and the BJP (1). They will have single-phase polling for 119 seats on November 30 with the counting of votes set for December 3.