Telangana Elections: Several Alliances among Opposition Parties in the Making

The political situation in Telangana has heated up with Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan’s acceptance of a cabinet resolution to dissolve the state assembly on September 6. Alongside the announcement of the unprecedented move, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao announced a list of 105 Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidates who will be contesting in the elections.

Today, the TRS chief launched the election campaign with a public meeting from Husnabad constituency in Siddipet District. Opposition parties, on the other hand, have unanimously criticised the move as “undemocratic”, and are at various levels of talks in forming different alliances among themselves to fight the untimely elections.

Also Read: Telangana Heads For Early Polls, Governor Dissolves Assembly

Quoting sources, The Indian Express had reported that the Election Commission is considering to conduct the assembly polls in Telangana simultaneously with- Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan- states which are slated for elections later this year. “As far as I know, the poll process may begin in October and get completed in November. The results may be announced in the first week of December,” Chief Election Commissioner O. P. Rawat told NDTV.

While the main opposition party – Congress is likely to ally with the Telugu Desam Party, the CPI(M) has floated the Bahujan Left Front (BLF), a joint front of nearly 30 progressive organisations and political parties, and has approached actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena party, Professor Kodandaram’s Telangana Jana Samiti party (TJS) and CPI, intending to form a larger alliance.

“BLF is expecting a possibility of forming alliance with Jana Sena party, whereas TJS and CPI parties are yet to decide on allying with us,” Tammeneni Veerabadhram, CPI(M) State secretary and BLF State convenor told Newsclick over phone. Denouncing the TRS government’s move as “undemocratic”, Veerabadhram said that such dissolution was “unnecessary and a cheap tactic of the TRS party.”

Congress and TDP, rival parties in the state for decades now, are likely to form an alliance for the upcoming assembly elections. The opposition parties are claiming that the TRS government failed to give appropriate reasons for dissolving the assembly after just four years and four months of rule. “There was neither a natural calamity nor there was a short of majority in the House. This decision is totally undemocratic, with a political motive to misguide the people of Telangana. We strongly condemn this undemocratic action,” Ram Chandra Khuntia, Congress party in-charge of Telangana told in a press briefing on Thursday. Congress leaders stated that "KCR Hatao, Telangana Bachao" will be the main slogan in their campaign. While top leaders from TDP and Congress have already hinted that the two parties will be going for an alliance, an official statement from the parties is still expected.

Also Read: Telangana Govt. Brags Welfare Measures, Students Protest Demanding Jobs

Nomula Narasimhaiah, TRS candidate from Nagarjuna sagar constituency claimed that this is not the first time that a government was dissolved in the country. “Earlier leaders like former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao had dissolved their regimes and went for elections,” Narasimhaiah told Newsclick. He further claimed that the TRS party is confident of winning the elections. “Telangana voters will reject any alliances against the TRS which was also reflected in the recently held Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections where majority candidates from opposition parties had lost even deposits.”

In the 2014 assembly elections, TRS formed the government by securing 63 MLA seats of the total 119. However, the party’s strength in the assembly rose to 82 with subsequent defections from Congress and TDP.

As the untimely elections have led to different alliances, political commentators are predicting that the elections are going to be a multi-cornered fight.