The decision by the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to embrace the BJP-led NDA was part of a calculated strategy aimed at achieving its objective of a separate Telengana state.
TRS general secretary and Lok Sabha member B Vinod Kumar told FE on Tuesday that the shift to the NDA, a move that has adversely impacted the Third Front even before it could take off, conforms to the party?s stated position of getting statehood for Telengana by any means. ?We supported the UPA and were part of the Congress-led coalition at the Centre. However, we had to quit the UPA only after they did not take any action on Telengana as promised,? he said. ?The only option left was the NDA. The BJP?s position on creation of smaller states is favourable to us, ?Kumar added. ?Supporting a Third Front government at the Centre is not really an option for us as it will have to be backed by the Congress?.
The TRS leadership, however, maintains that the party continued to remain part of the ?grand alliance? in Andhra Pradesh and would work towards creation of a non-Congress government in the state. ?We will follow the coalition dharma,? said Kumar, rejecting suggestions that the stand was contradictory. ?Such a position is not something new. The TDP contested the 1998 Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh together with the CPI(M). However, after the elections, it decided to support the NDA government at the Centre?.
The decision to align with the TDP and the Left parties in the state to jointly fight the elections was born of anti-Congressism, he said, arguing that the stand would remain unchanged even after the results were out. ?We have been together fighting the Congress government in the state for the last one-and-a-half years. So it was only natural that we formed the grand alliance against the Congress,? Kumar said.
The assessment in political circles, however, is that the TRS avoided any truck with the BJP in the state before elections as it was wary of the impact such a move would have on Muslim voters in Telengana region. Minorities are in a sizeable number in the former Nizam-ruled state, where the TRS has contested nine Lok Sabha and 43 assembly seats as part of the grand alliance. That the BJP does not really have a significant base in the state, managing to win only two seats the last time in the entire state despite fielding 33 candidates, only added to the decision not to have an alliance when elections began.
TRS sources concede that an alliance with the BJP would not only have alienated the Muslim vote base, it would also have rendered the grand alliance a non-starter as the TDP and the Left would have no option but to dump the TRS.