Telangana Assembly Election Results 2018: KCR’s win shows development, not alliances, the key to success

Move over Chandrababu Naidu; K Chandrasekhar Rao, better known as KCR, is the newest regional satrap in town. This was the unmistakable message following Assembly election in Telangana, results of which were announced on Tuesday. Immediately after results were declared, KCR declared his national ambitions, announcing, “I will actively participate in national politics.”

KCR’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) grabbed a two-thirds majority in a 119-member Assembly despite going up against a Congress-led four-party alliance. These results throw up three major lessons, which can be emulated by all political parties.

One, it’s developmental politics that nowadays get translated into votes, while communal or caste politics no longer takes one anywhere.

Two, the Congress has lost the plot in trying to retake Telangana, and will have to think out of the box with respect to Andhra Pradesh as well as the general elections due to be completed within the next five months. This is the second consecutive election Congress lost in Telangana, though it was a Congress-led UPA government that had created the state.

And three, pre-poll alliances are good, but can yield results only when these alliances are struck well before the battle of the ballot is announced and alliance partners can reach out to the electorate with sops that are much better than their rivals.

This is where KCR excelled and Congress flopped. The Congress’ experiment of teaming up with Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and two other parties failed miserably. KCR cleverly exploited this alliance to his own advantage and played on the Telangana pride theme. People of Telangana are averse to the dominance of big brother Andhra Pradesh, and this fear of Andhra dominance is what had propelled the agitation for a separate state of Telangana in the first place.

TDP, meanwhile, came into existence over 36 years ago on an anti-Congress plank. The Congress-TDP pre-poll tie-up changed the very political paradigm of the TDP, and the electorate has clearly looked upon this experiment as an opportunistic alliance. The sudden camaraderie between Rahul Gandhi and Chandrababu Naidu has obviously not gone down well with the people of Telangana. That Congress and TDP, who have never looked eye to eye in 30 years, suddenly joined hands, and people rejected their alliance.

But how did KCR pull off such an emphatic victory? Here’s how. Right from day one he had an advantageous position. He dissolved the Assembly on September 6, six months ahead of schedule, and announced 105 candidates the same day. In contrast, Congress came up with its final list of candidates only on November 18. This gave KCR a three-month advantage over his rivals when it came to campaigning.

Moreover, the allies wasted time in internal squabbling and negotiations over seat-sharing. At last, TDP got 13 seats, CPI three and Jan Sena four, while Congress contested from 99 seats.

But the most important reason for KCR’s victory is his pro-poor, welfare agenda with innovative and well-grounded schemes. For example, he allotted a Rs 1,000 pension for senior citizens, and the money reaches the accounts of the beneficiaries on first day of every month. He also pledged to double this, and to increase the retirement age of state government employees from the present 58 to 61 if his party is returned to power. His pro-farmer schemes like ‘Rythu Bandhu’ (farmer’s brother) and ‘Rythu Bima’ (farmer’s pension) have been great hits. Added to this is the 24-hour free power supply to the agricultural sector.

The Congress-TDP combine, on the other hand, could not take their populist manifesto to the masses due to paucity of time. They didn’t even have a chief ministerial candidate to take on KCR, and as many as eight Congress leaders were aspiring for the hot seat.

Moreover, KCR led a strategic and constituency-oriented campaign, where all relevant facts and figures were available on his fingertips. He addressed more than 100 public meetings in the last 20 days, covering five to six rallies a day. To make matters worse for the Congress, even Sonia Gandhi’s public meeting did not help the party, while Rahul Gandhi’s speeches were lacklustre.

Author is a strategic analyst

How Telangana Was Won And Lost

• Developmental politics of TRS trumped the day, and voters rejected communal or caste-based politics.
• Though Congress was the party that granted statehood to Telangana, it will have to rethink its strategy ahead of 2019
• Pre-poll alliances can yield resuilts only when they are struck well before the polls are announced, and parties can reach out to voters