All’s well in love and war

The stage seems to be ready for high octane poll campaign once the Navaratri festival is over. While Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is busy giving final touches to the party manifesto. It is believed that it will be full of promises and would aim to cater to the interests of different social communities and groups.

There is every possibility that the party may come up with renewed loan waiver scheme, revised version of double-bedroom scheme and such big-ticket promises. The TRS seems to be waiting for the grand Opposition alliance to come up with its manifesto so that it can fine tune the pink manifesto and showcase that the TRS is one up over other parties.

Since the Opposition has been criticising the TRS that it had failed to move in the direction of creating Bangaru Telangana, the TRS will continue with this slogan and will tell the people that gold plating cannot be left halfway through and for that it is necessary for the TRS to come back to power.

While KCR is working out minute details with regard to the strategy for series of meetings he would be addressing across the length and breadth of Telangana, the Congress too is in an aggressive mood and has scheduled the first round of whirlwind campaign tour of Rahul Gandhi on October 20.

Not withstanding the claims of each party whether it be the ruling party or the Opposition combine, the fact of the matter remains that the political situation in Telangana is changing by the day. The people’s mood certainly is not what it was in 2014. At that time people were in victory mode and mood. They were celebrating the bifurcation of the State after a long-drawn struggle.

Though it was the Congress with the help of BJP which passed the AP State Reorganisation Act 2014 and paved the way for formation of the 29th State, it was seen as the victory of the TRS. The two national parties were forced by the TRS to carve a new State was the feeling among the people.

The promise of converting the new State into Bangaru Telangana and schemes like double-bedroom houses, resolving power and water problems both drinking and irrigation and jobs for youth were seen as bonus from the TRS.

Four years down the line, the State is once again in the grip of poll fever. The TRS and AIMIM feel that the pink party would romp back to power with absolute majority. But the ground situation indicates that the journey is full of potholes and the ride cannot be a smooth one. From a situation where it was unchallenged TRS in 2014, the situation has changed to a level where the TRS is facing anti-incumbency factor.

People may be happy with KCR but what matters is the opinion of the people about their public representative who led them in the last four years. There are many constituencies where people may be happy with the schemes of the TRS president but are not happy with their MLAs.

That is why KCR has adopted a master strategy to once again rake up the T sentiment and is criticising TDP and its leader N Chandrababu Naidu in harshest possible language. He knows that his language is not decent but then he also knows that it would become the talk of the town among people and other negative points may go into background. The results alone will tell us to what extend his calculation was correct.

At the same time, overdose of everything could be dangerous. While it is natural to take credit for all the schemes introduced by the TRS government and promising bigger moon and calling him as poor man’s CM is understandable but saying that KCR is next only to personalities like Indira Gandhi and NTR sounds more like an egoistic statement, the voters in urban and rural areas feel. But then, all is well in love and war. It’s time people get ready to bear all kinds of cacophony from all parties.