Hyderabad, August 09: After demolishing the TDP in the recent byelections, the TRS is busy giving the finishing touches to its strategy to decimate the party in all of Telangana by engineering defections.
The bait is likely to be thrown both to TDP leaders and cadres. The strategy would be fine-tuned in the next few days.
With the Congress now poll-shy, thanks to the bypoll debacle, it is likely to defer elections to local bodies by at least a year. The TRS is keen to use this time to emerge as the main party in Telangana. It has already dropped hints that its main rival is the TDP not Congress.
Sources said the pink party is not keen on embarrassing the ruling party too much. In fact, whenever elections are held to local bodies, it might contest them on its own or in alliance with the Congress, if need be.
To begin with, the TRS will challenge TDP leaders to submit a memorandum favouring bifurcation of the state to the Srikrishna Committee.
The aim, party sources said, is to expose the TDP in the eyes of the people.
In the first phase, the TRS will concentrate on constituencies where TDP MLAs or MPs do not have cordial relations with the TRS or local T organisations. Here, TRS local leaders will woo TDP cadres and isolate their leaders. This part of the strategy has already been activated.
The TRS is also asking its incharges in these constituencies to dangle the carrot of a ticket for the 2014 Assembly elections. The TRS used this tactic with great success before the recent byelections in north Telangana where TDP leaders and cadres, including a former MLA, switched loyalties. Because of this, the TDP’s votebank shrank drastically and the party lost deposits in all the 12 byelections.
“We thought the TDP would lose deposits in five constituencies but they lost deposits in all,’’ one TRS leader said adding that this was the right time to finish off the TDP.
“We are receiving a number of phone calls from members of TDP mandal and village committees.
They want to join us as they have no future in the TDP,” he said.
–Agencies