In KCR’s Telangana, Congress Stares at Rout After Losing Most MLAs

Since the Assembly polls in December 2018, 10 out of the Congress’ 19 MLAs have jumped ship and joined the TRS.

On 11 April, in the first phase of this general election, Telangana will vote to elect 17 representatives to the next Lok Sabha. Yet, even as the rest of the country is gripped with election fervour and speculation, there is very little of it in Telangana. Yes, the rallies are on, and the campaign speeches too – but unlike in other parts of India, there isn’t much of a doubt here as to what the outcome of the polls will be.

It seems as if everyone is certain that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) led by K Chandrashekhar Rao will rout whatever is left of the opposition here in the state.

The funny bit is, even many of those candidates who managed to defeat the TRS in the recent Assembly elections in December 2018 will openly tell you so. The reason? Because they’ve now joined the TRS.

Majority of Congress MLAs Jumped Ship to TRS

In the Assembly polls, the Congress managed to win 19 seats out of 119, a far cry from the dominating TRS tally of 88.

Since then, as many as 10 out of the Congress’ 19 MLAs have jumped ship and joined the TRS in the months preceding the Lok Sabha polls.

What’s Ticking for KCR?

Dr E Venkatesu, professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad and coordinator for CSDS-Lokniti in AP and Telangana, tells The Quint,

“The kind of populist welfare schemes that KCR has introduced in Telangana has pushed Congress back in the state. Providing inputs to farmers through the Rythu Bandhu scheme has changed the game here.”

• The Rythu Bandhu scheme covers over 57 lakh farmers in more than 10,000 villages.
• Launched in 2018, the scheme struck a chord with small, marginal farmers, who own about 80% of the operational land holdings in the state.
• The investment support scheme gives farmers Rs 8,000 per year for every acre of land owned. It also provides a Rs 5 lakh insurance cover for farmers.
• KCR’s scheme is said to have inspired the Centre to launch the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, which provides a minimum income support of Rs 6,000 per year to farmers owning less than 5 acres of land.

Speaking to The Quint, TRS MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha argues that the scheme in Telangana is more significant than the one launched by the Centre.

“The Centre’s scheme was inspired by our scheme, but it is a lighter version of our scheme. We give a lot more money per acre to the farmer than what the Modi government proposes.”

Kalvakuntla Kavitha, TRS MP

The Lack of a Strong Opposition

On the back of social security pensions to widows and persons with disabilities, financial assistance to weavers and beedi workers, schemes like 'Kalyana Lakshmi' and 'Shaadi Mubarak' under which girls are provided with an assistance of Rs 1 lakh each for their marriage, KCR’s approval ratings have remained intact.

On the other hand, the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the formation of Telangana made Chandrababu Naidu and his Telugu Desam Party unwelcome in Telangana. Naidu was seen as the representative of the people of Andhra, and not of Telangana.

In 2014, the TDP had won 15 Assembly seats. In the 2018 Assembly polls, however, the party was reduced to merely two seats.

The TDP had contested 72 seats in 2014, with a vote share of 14.55%. In 2018, it contested only 13 seats and the party’s vote share slipped to 3.5%.

The Congress went down from 21 seats in 2014 to 19 in 2018, but with most of their MLAs walking out of the party and willing to face re-election on TRS tickets, they can hardly provide any strong opposition to the TRS here.

After joining TRS, Congress MLA from Yellareddy, Jajala Surender, said that there was a growing distance between the grand old party and the people of the state.

Growing distance or not, what is clear is that local politicians here feel that the TRS is by far the strongest option, and it is in their own interests that they are jumping ship.

Congress’ Hope

If there is some hope that the Congress can salvage from a state where roughly 53% of its MLAs have left the party, that hope lies in vote share statistics.

In 2014, the Congress polled 25.02% of the vote share after contesting 119 seats and winning 21 of them. In 2018, however, the Congress was part of the Maha Kootami (People’s Front) alliance along with the TDP, CPI and Telangana Jana Samithi. So, the Congress contested in only 100 seats, including friendly contests in four seats.

Despite that, the party emerged with an increased vote share of 28.4%, albeit winning two seats fewer than before. An increase of 3.4% is significant and creditable. In fact, when the TRS had come to power in Telangana’s first ever Assembly in 2014, it had won 63 seats with a vote share of 34.04%, only 5.6% more than Congress’ current vote share.

The difference this time though, is that with the TDP whittled down to a marginal presence, the TRS has picked up their vote share and gone up to 46.9% in the Assembly election in December 2018.

In the 2018 polls, the TRS won 97 lakh votes and the Congress received 58 lakh. The BJP received 14 lakh votes and came third in terms of total votes polled. However, the party was joint fifth in terms of number of seats won, having managed to wrest only one Assembly constituency.

So, the difference between the Congress in second place and the BJP in third is huge. The Congress is still the primary Opposition in the state. If it seeks to revive itself, it will have to do so by first keeping its leaders within the party fold. Anti-incumbency in a newly formed state may take a while to come about, especially in the face of popular welfare policies by the state government.

All said and done, it is a battle for the long-term. In the short run though, when Telangana goes to vote on 11 April, it isn’t a question of whether TRS will triumph in most seats. The question is – how many?

TRS Favourites, Hands Down

Barring the one seat in Hyderabad, which TRS ally and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi is expected to comfortably retain, there are 16 seats which KCR’s party hopes to win. The 18.5% difference in vote share, as polled in December, between the TRS and its strongest opponent the Congress, shows that that is a distinct possibility.

With Rahul Gandhi having come to campaign in Telangana only twice in the run-up to the 2019 polls, covering four Lok Sabha constituencies, and a no-show from Sonia Gandhi, it seems the Congress too is resigned to that possibility.

If a candidate like former Union minister Renuka Choudhury, who is contesting for the Congress from Khammam, can pull off an upset, the party will be more than happy. But the party leadership’s lack of focus on the state has made it clear that it doesn’t really fancy its chances in Telangana.