New TRS, stable Congress in close fight in the new state Telengana

HYDERABAD: A huge cut-out of Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrasekhar Rao greets visitors to Hyderabad a couple of kilometres from the international airport. "Welcome to Telangana, the heartland of India's cultural diversity – investment friendly and great environment," reads the accompanying message, which is clearly designed to claim credit for statehood recently granted to the region.
The Congress, which overcame stiff opposition from within the party as much as its rivals to carve a separate state of Telangana in Andhra Pradesh, is yet to come up with a competing billboard. So the first-time visitor can be excused for believing that the TRS is the clear favourite in the coming elections.

Telangana's electoral map is much more diverse than the deceptive 30-odd km drive from the airport to the city centre suggests. Although all parties are determined to cash in on the "sentiment", especially in central Hyderabad and the northern part, their perception of the public mood is anything but uniform.

"Telangana has become a reality due to the 13-year long relentless struggle by the TRS under the leadership of Chandrasekhar Rao," said K Seshkumar, a Medka district leader of the party's youth wing.

"Now the people will vote the TRS to power so that we deliver them what has been promised – uninterrupted power and water supply to farmers, more jobs for the youth and free land and houses for the poor."

The TRS is on a high in districts like Medak, Warangal, Karimnagar and parts of Nizamabad and Adilabad which form the northern Telangana, where agitation for statehood was particularly intense. The party needs to ensure maximum gains in these districts to do well in the elections.

However, it faces competition from the Congress, which has been the only party with a pan-Telangana appeal and organisational back-up.

When the Congress and TRS tied up in the run-up to the 2004 elections, the combine swept the region in both Lok Sabha and assembly polls, with the TRS notching up its best score ever of five Lok Sabha seats and 25 assembly seats.

Two years later, Rao quit the union cabinet, pulled TRS out of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and further intensified the agitation. In 2009, when the TRS joined hands with the TDP, CPM and CPI to take on the Congress, it managed to win just two Lok Sabha seats and nine assembly seats while YS Rajasekhara Rao powered the Congress to victory.

In the absence of a well-knit organisational and cadre structure, the TRS may not find it easy to ride the sentiment this time if it indeed opts for a solo run.

It is nonetheless expected to have an upper hand in the northern districts, which account for about half of the seats in the state.

Senior Congress leader Damodar Rajanarasimha told ET in Hyderabad why his party should not be underestimated.

"When one talks about Telangana sentiment, you would see the state has high intensity Telangana sentiment areas just as the state has medium and very low intensity Telangana sentiment areas. It also means different kind of politics," he said.
The twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad and Ragareddy districts in central Telangana are seen to be "medium intensity areas" where the Congress and MIM have a bigger presence and better grip than the TRS.

In the southern districts of Nalgoanda and Mehaboobnagar as well, the TRS appears to be overshadowed by the Congress and the TDP. "It is Sonia Gandhi who got us Telangana state. I will vote for the Congress," said Krishan Reddy, an agricultural worker in Miryalaguda town in Nalgonda.

Apart from the challenge of bridging this northern-southern divide, the TRS – which is increasingly controlled by Rao, his nephew, son and daughter than any cohesive ideology or organisation – also needs to find enough credible candidates to field.

Even as many fortune seekers are floating towards the TRS, the party needs to overcome a number of odds to hit the halfway mark or even emerge as the largest party.