Telangana Elections 2023: Anti-incumbency a factor but can Congress override KCR’s charisma?

Telangana Elections 2023: Can Congress override KCR’s charisma?

It was a do-or-die battle for Telangana Chief Minister KCR or Chandrasekhar Rao Kalvakuntla when he launched an 11-day fast-unto-death on November 29, 2009, almost exactly 14 years ago, seeking statehood for his homeland.

Incidentally, KCR, after being in the saddle for a decade riding the crest of regional pride, is facing a similarly dicey situation now even as he is all set to test his fortunes in the assembly elections scheduled in the next 24 hours.

For more click on Telangana Elections 2023 Live

BRS: Refuge In Regionalism

Locked in a triangle contest, the BRS chief has reached out to the electors with a narrative laced around development and welfare under which he claims the state has progressed under his stewardship, hoping the rhetoric would help him return to power for the third time.

When the pre-poll surveys predicted a downswing for his party, making it difficult to sell his welfare-development agenda in the face of a tide of anti-incumbency, Rao has returned to taking refuge in regional pride in a bid to gloss over the omissions and commissions of his  regime. Thus, the Deeksha Divas, as his popular fast-unto-death event has been commemorated every year, came handy for KCR to play out his potent and all-weather bogey of regional sentiment just a couple of days before the polling.

Chinks appear in the BRS’s armour due to its alienation from students and jobless youths and employees, sections of Dalits and OBCs on the alleged failure of KCR to realise his promise of “Samajika Telangana”, characterised by neellu (water), nidhulu (funds) and niyamakalu

(jobs). However, old-age pensions covering a large number of the aged, single women and the disabled seemingly remained an undisturbed vote-catcher for the ruling party.

BJP’s Decline

The 2023 elections evolved as a three-cornered slugfest until earlier this year,but BJP suddenly began to cede ground to Congress after the Karnataka elections. Analysts describe how the BJP has lost its plot in Telangana with its four historical blunders called the “Four Ks”.

The saffron party had at one point even emerged as the principal challenger to KCR through the gains it made in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections followed by the Dubbak and Huzurabad byelections and GHMC elections.

But then followed the so-called self-defeating four Ks:

* Karnataka defeat

* Kishan Reddy (Union minister)’s induction as Telangana’s party president, replacing Bandi Sanjay

* Kavitha (KCR’s daughter and an accused in Delhi’s liquor scam) seemingly being allowed to escape from the dragnet of central probe agencies; and,

* Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy’s defeat as a BJP candidate in Munugode (he later returned to the Congress).

A consolation for both KCR and BJP is the prediction of  pre-poll surveys, claiming the saffron party has improved its vote share which may cross 10 percent in rural areas and 14 percent in urban areas. The polling may witness such a triangular contest in at least 40 assembly segments where the BJP is a marginal player, cutting into the opposition vote.

Congress’s Indira Nostalgia

By displaying a semblance of unity, the Congress has proved wrong the expectations of its rivals. There is not even a single rebel from the Congress in any of the 119 assembly segments – a rarity in the grand old party. Its promise of six-guarantees – a bouquet of six major  freebies – seems to have also gone down well with a section of voters.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, AICC general secretary, meanwhile, attempted to revive a connection that Telangana had to  her grandmother, Indira Gandhi. Indira had contested from Medak in 1980 post-emergency by promising to herald Indiramma Rajyam from one of her election rallies. Andhra Pradesh, in which Telangana was a part then, had firmly backed Indira in the national election in 1977 by giving her party 41 out of 42 seats, though the Congress was literally washed away in other states in the Janata wave. Nandyal, the lone seat, was won by Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy as a Janata Party candidate.

That is how Indira chose Medak in present-day Telangana to contest the 1980 polls and Congress won 41 out of 42 seats again. Priyanka, however conveniently ignored a mention of PV Narasimha Rao, son of the soil from Telangana who salvaged the Congress from a crisis

that gripped the party after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and ran successfully a Congress-led minority government at the Centre and is today known as the harbinger of economic reforms.

The Priyanka pitch for Indiramma Rajyam raised serious questions over its relevance now as Indira had died nearly four decades ago and most voters today would have little memory of that period. It also brings to the fore the inability of the Congress to zero in on  an icon in a way that helps itself stay relevant to counter the KCR charisma.

So the question that remains is whether Congress can succeed in realising Priyanka’s clarion call – Bye Bye KCR – at her poll rallies.