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SIGNALS FOR TELANGANA
KCR: Aiming higher !Duggaraju Srinivasa Rao The voters of Telangana kept their tryst with KCR and gave a positive mandate to him to rule for the next five years, thus making him another powerful regional chieftain. The victory of KCR is undoubtedly emphatic, both seatwise and vote-wise. From 63 seats out of 119 in 2014, at the height of the separate statehood agitation and Telangana sentiment, to 88
seats after a four-and-a-half-year
rule is a certain positive mandate.
The increase in the vote share
from around 33-34% in 2014 to
46.9% in 2018 signifies the
people’s confidence in KCR's
leadership despite the
government being run by a single
‘family’, serious allegations of
corruption in the ongoing
irrigation projects and the failure
to create jobs. KCR could not only successfully
thwart the opponents’ ambitions.
He has also started aiming high to
be the builder of a grand national
alternative to the Congress and
the BJP. Earlier, many regional
parties were not in favour of KCR's
leadership for the Third Front. TRS party workers celebrating their victory at Telangana Bhavan in Hyderabad. Several factors contributed to the landslide victory of KCR. The single biggest factor was the entry of Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, into the election campaign in Telangana.
Chandrababu Naidu
Chandrababu’s presence in the
electoral arena provided the
eluding ‘villain' for KCR. His team
started a no-holds-barred attack
on Chandrababu, successfully
stoking the dormant Telangana
sentiment fires. The more
Chandrababu tried to build a
People’s Front against KCR, the
sharper the verbal attack on him
from the KCR camp. More the
campaign Chandrababu tried to
build with his pet theme of ‘Naidu developed Hyderabad’, more the
Telangana people started showing
resentment against his campaign.
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah
Coupled with this, the infighting
of the Congress contributed to the
landslide of KCR. Almost all top
leaders the Congress were chief
ministerial aspirants. The
Congress did not work as a team. Asaduddin Owaisi The rock solid support of the All-India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party to KCR gave him additional seats in the towns and cities. Maslis leader Owaisi is now an ardent admirer of KCR . He says “people of India must know the kind of leader KCR is. Each and every section of society, especially
Rajnath Singh Sushma Swaraj
minorities and deprived classes,
has benefited under KCR”. Nitin Gadkari On the eve of victory, KCR said, “We will not remain a mere spectator. We will play a crucial role. A new national party may be formed with the consortium of regional parties very soon and the details of the new party will be released soon in Delhi.” |