By N Venugopal
Whatever may be the larger outcome and its impact, 2019 election results certainly routed the aspirations and ambitions of two key players in Indian politics – N Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrashekar Rao. These unquestioned captains of regional parties and chief ministers of two Telugu states – Andhra Pradesh and Telangana – have cultivated hopes that they would be able to play a major role in the Central government formation, in the event of a hung verdict. Expecting to gain a majority of 25 seats in AP and 17 in Telangana, both of them thought their numbers would set them in a formidable position. With that expectation, KCR floated Federal Front and Naidu threw his weight with the UPA.
However, the results shockingly belied their hopes. In Telangana out of the 16 seats TRS could only secure 8 and in AP, out of 25 seats Naidu could not open his account.
Though there were widespread rumors that TRS had a secret understanding with BJP to enter into a post-result alliance, in case of shortage of numbers, anti incumbency against TRS benefitted BJP so much that the latter secured an unprecedented 4 seats. Similarly, Congress suffering severe defeats all over the country was able to gain 4 seats. While TRS has been giving a slogan ‘Car – Sarkar – Padahaaru (symbol of TRS, government and sixteen seats), it had to be content with half the mark only. Anyway, whether it is 16 or 8, in the current scenario NDA doesn’t need the support of TRS at all.
Within four months of securing a thumping victory of 88 and having 101 out of 119 Assembly seats as of now (by encouraging defection of 13 MLAs from other parties), TRS could retain only half of expected results in Parliament elections.
Given the ground reality of scant presence of BJP in Telangana, it getting 4 seats is unexpected but the victory can be attributed to strong anti-government feelings. Out of the four, in two seats the direct vanquished are KCR’s daughter and nephew. In another seat, the defeated TRS candidate got the ticket just because he was the son of an unpopular minister who defected to TRS from Telugu Desam Party.
The winners from Congress are also interesting in that one of them was a sitting MP from TRS who left and joined Congress a few months ago, two lost as MLAs in December and another defeated the TRS candidate who got ticket just because he was the son-in-law of a billionaire educational institution builder who recently defected to TRS from TDP.
In Andhra Pradesh, the complete sweep of YSRC not only overthrew Naidu’s dreams of becoming a king maker in New Delhi, but also his position in Assembly. After being a part of the NDA and sharing cabinet berths for over three years, TDP fell out and in the last one year raised its voice against BJP in general and Narendra Modi in particular. During the election campaign, both Modi and Naidu used choicest epithets against each other and finally in the last fortnight before the last phase, Naidu made a whirlwind visit to enlist support to UPA and to prevent Modi becoming PM. Now, with only a single digit mandate to him as well as getting wiped out of the Assembly, Naidu’s role in the national politics will be minimal if not zero.
Such a rout of a formidable politician who served as chief minister of the united state for two terms and the divided state for one term is incredible, but it has its strong roots in several factors including anti-incumbency and corruption. Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who got 150 seats in 175-member Assembly, earlier indicated his inclination to join hands with Narendra Modi but his strength of 22 MPs now may not be needed by the NDA at all.
(Author is editor at Veekshanam, a Telugu monthly journal. Views expressed are personal.)
