Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Politics have seen many strange combination of parties to contest and win elections. They would join hands and will go to any extent to remain in power. It is likely that something strange like this is going to happen in Telangana also, where after decades of fighting each other, Congress and the Telugu Desam Party are coming together against Telangana Rashtra Samiti.

It will be an interesting scenario, when combination of Chandrababu Naidu and Rahul Gandhi will be against K Chandrasekhar Rao and Narendra Modi as, Telugu Desam owes its birth to an anti-Congress position in 1982. Since the formation of Telangana and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Reddy community is thriving to get back to power, as it was once when congress was in rule.

Though the two Reddy leaders — PCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy and CLP leader Jana Reddy, lead the Congress party unit in Telangana, still Congress is not confident in launching them against TRS because they lack the instincts and qualities of K Chandrasekhar Rao. But TDP leader Revanth Reddy, posses all the skills needed to stand against TRS and hope to win the battle. He is easily the most popular and aggressive non-TRS leader who manages a connect with the crowd. Therefore Congress likely to ally with TDP.

The major political ideological issue arising here is that, on one hand, Congress is tying up with TDP in Telangana against TRS, whereas on the other hand, BJP and TDP are ally at the Centre. Another political ideological issue is while fighting against each other in Telangana, the TDP and the BJP will be allies in Andhra where the Congress will be a rival.

It is still not clear if the TDP and the Reddy congress will get the consent from the Congress high command and Chandrababu Naidu. If both the parties manage to form an alliance, it may have both advantages and disadvantages. Advantage being that if the alliance works, it will prevent the split of votes and disadvantage will be that TDP has an anti-Telangana image in the state and the TRS will go to any limit to checkmate Congress.

TDP President, Chandrababu Naidu has resentment against the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh and many of the issues over division of assets as per the Bifurcation Act have not been satisfactorily settled between the two states yet. Naidu is fearing that if he does not take any decision fast, than his left over party will either be poached by TRS or the BJP. Already 12 of its 15 MLAs have joined the TRS in batches in the last three years and the party is merely left with nothing compared to what it used to be in Andra Pradesh. It won’t be an easy decision to take.