Will Telangana Chief Minister and TRS Supremo K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s gamble in deciding to field a fifth party nominee for the current MLC elections under the MLA quota pay off ?.
This question has assumed importance and is being debated in political circles after KCR stuck to his guns and went ahead in fielding a fifth candidate despite the fact that the ruling TRS can comfortably win only four of the six seats for which polling is scheduled to take place on June 1.
Since each candidate for a win would require a minimum of 18 votes, TRS with a tally of 75 members in the Telangana Assembly can ensure a comfortable victory for four of its nominees without any hitch. However for the fifth nominee to sail through, the party falls short of as many as 15 members. Thus the gamble of the Chief Minister to field a fifth candidate has intrigued many in political circles. But KCR seemed to be confident that with the backing of MIM, which has a strength of seven members in the Assembly, and also support from each member of CPI, CPM, YSRCP and an Independent, besides the expected “cross voting” might help TRS to pocket the fifth seat too.
Though it might sound to be a tall claim in exuding confidence of winning the fifth seat, it is not known what prompted KCR to throw his hat in the ring despite being fully aware that if the move backfired, the ruling party’s image might get a beating for the worst as the party had already suffered a set back in the recent MLC elections from the graduates constituency with the BJP supported candidate wresting the seat, .
Therefore the decision of KCR to field the fifth candidate seemed to have been undoubtedly taken due to impulsive ego clash with a political vengeance rather than based on political diplomacy or maturity. Clearly the move is part of KCR’s one-upmanship game to score a point against his beet noire as he had not heeded to the advice of many senior TRS leaders against fielding a fifth candidate.
It is a well known fact that Chandrasekhar Rao and his AP counterpart Chandrababu Naidu, who is also the TDP President, are bitter political enemies even before the southern Telugu State was divided into Telangana and AP States. Both do not see eye to eye on many issues and try to cross swords with other at every given opportunity.
As a matter of fact the bitterness between the two Chief Ministers had been steadily growing due to various factors concerning the development and welfare activities of their respective states. From day one after taking the reins as Chief Minister of Telangana, KCR has vowed to wipe out TDP from the Telangana map. Accordingly he had been maneuvering and encouraging TDP members to defect to TRS. He had definitely succeeded in this matter as four TDP members jumped the ship and joined TRS reducing the yellow brigade’s strength from 15 to 11. What is more, KCR has diligently used his “akarshan” weapon to attract four members from Congress and two members each from BSP and YSR Congress Party and thus increasing the strength of TRS from 63 to 75.
Thus the MLC elections slated for June 1 seemed to have provided yet another opportunity to Chandrasekhar Rao to take cudgels against his bete noire Chandrababu Naidu and push him to the wall. Based on the party’s strength the TRS after allocating 18 votes to each of its four nominees to ensure their victory with ease, would fall short of 15 votes for the fifth candidate to win. Besides its three surplus votes, the party is banking on the support of MIM which has of seven members. Still TRS falls short of eight votes and hence the party leadership is seeking the help of CPI, CPM, YSR Congress Party and an Independent and for the other four votes, it seems to be banking on cross voting by the fence sitters of both Congress and TDP.
The TDP which has an effective strength of 11 members is being supported by the BJP’s five members. For the remaining two votes, the party leadership is in touch with the Left parties for support. The Congress with an effective strength of 18 members though is sure of winning the seat was not prepared to take any chances and hence trying to rope in members from non-TRS and non-BJP parties.
Whether TRS Chief succeeds or not in the one-upmanship game with the TDP President, the very fact that he had thrown his hat in the ring has definitely ushered in “ache din“ for fence sitters of both Congress and TDP in helping them to get rich quick. Already the horse trading has begun with all the three contesting parties trying to “buy” as many votes as possible.
Here one cannot ignore the fact that the entry of the fifth nominee of the TRS is giving jitters not only to TDP but also to the Congress as the lure of the lucre can attract members from both the parties to indulge in cross voting. Having realized this, the Congress leadership has assigned its senior member and Leader of Opposition K.Jana Reddy to persuade the TRS to desist from fielding a fifth candidate and cooperate in making the election for the six seats unanimous. But KCR having his own agenda up his sleeve turned down the Congress plea.
All said and done the MLC election has become crucial for all the three contesting parties and has definitely attracted nation-wide attention. If KCR succeeds in his gamble by winning the fifth seat, then it would sound the death knell for both TDP and Congress. In fact chances of the TDP getting decimated seems to be more under the prevailing circumstances. However, if the TRS ploy fails to click then the pink party should think twice before indulging in such political gambling in future. (NSS).