Looking at Prakash Karat’s travel itinerary in the last few days, he appears to be working hard to ensure that the damage is limited to TRS alone.
Looking at CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat’s travel itinerary in the last few days, he appears to be working hard to ensure that the damage is limited to TRS alone.
In the last few days, Karat has traveled from TN, to Andhra Pradesh to Orissa in order to consolidate his hold on the “secular front”. BJD chief Naveen Patnaik appears to have assured Karat of his support, yet the BJP is hoping that a poor showing in the elections will make Patnaik realise the folly of parting ways with the BJP.
AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa held a few joint public meetings with Karat. Very pointedly, her main message to the electorate has been that a sweep in the 40 seats in TN and Puducherry for her party will ensure a PM chosen almost solely by the Tamil people.
In Andhra Pradesh too, N Chandrababu Naidu of the Telegu Desam made no bones about the fact that the grand alliance or Mahakootami in the state was, for him, solely set up for the defeat of Congress’ Y Rajashekhara Reddy. The Left is really counting on Naidu’s assessment that the Mahakootami would get 25 out of 42 seats in Andhra Pradesh.
News from Karnataka is a little disturbing for Karat though. The father-son duo of Deve Gowda and H D Kumaraswamy has not met Karat in a while. Gowda junior, who is behind the tacit understanding between JD(S) and the Congress in Karnataka is said to be in talks with the party for a post poll understanding. “Everything depends on the numbers that the Congress gets, and a half way decent score for us as well,” said an aide to Kumaraswamy.
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