Andhra Politics - Congress ;TDP;PRP;TRS

This is an exact replica of the political situation in the state in 2004 before the elections, except for the role of TDP and Congress. In 2004, when TDP was ruling, all the opposition parties stood by Congress with the sole aim of getting TDP out of power, alleging that TDP has become an inefficient government.

Now, after five years of Congress ruling, the same oppositions parties (CPM, CPI and TRS) have joined hands with TDP and this time their sole aim to bring down Congress and the allegation on Congress government is high corruption. The leaders of all the opposition parties met here in Chandra Babu’s residence and have announced that they have all united and formed Maha Kootami (Great Allinace) and will bring down the corrupted Congress government in the next elections which are to be held in a few months.

Hope that this Maha Kootami will fare well and achieve its goal.

After the central leaders of the Communists parties have announced that they have decided to go along with the Telugu Desam party in the next general elections, the state level leaders of Communist parties met with the President of TDP, Mr. Nara Chandra Babu Naidu at his home yesterday. Communists have rifted from the TDP ten years back and this is the first time to see these leaders stand together since then.

The meeting was organized at Chandra Babu’s residence which was attended by Raghavulu (CPM) and Narayana (CPI). Apart from these three leaders, may second tier leaders from both the parties attended this meeting. They have discussed how to make the members of these parties at the lower levels work together. It was decided to organize a ‘Maha Sammelanam’ from Dec 25th to Jan 2nd in seven different locations in the state and instill confidence and friendliness among the members of both these parties, which were fighting against each other for the past ten years.

The meeting also discussed about TRS and PRP. Chandra Babu hoped that TRS would take a wise decision and join TDP, thus confirming the defeat of Congress in the next elections. About PRP, none of the leaders were serious. They believe that PRP has lost its track and will not have any affect in the elections.

A rather strange decision by the communists. The Communist parties (CPI and CPM) have decided to form an alliance with Jayalalitha’s AnnaDMK party in Tamil Nadu in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. To be noted that a few days back communists coalated with Telugu Desam party in the Andhra Pradesh.

Telugu Desam and AnnaDMK are not on good terms since the last year when JayaLalitha decided to withdraw from the UNPA without notice. TDP has worked very hard to gather parties and form a third alternative at the central level. However UNPA turned defunct when JayaLalitha decided to drop from it which annoyed TDP.

However now Communists who support UNPA have decided to join with Jayalalitha and it is to be seen how things will turn out. Will they come together again? Afterall, anything is possible in politics!

It seems all the parties are getting closer each day in their fight against the ruling Congress party. In the last general elections, all the parties allied to defeat the then ruling party TDP and succeeded in doing so. Now, an almost similar situation can be seen in the state, with TDP and Congress exchanging positions.

Communists and TDP have already declared officially that they would work together in the next general elections with the sole aim of ending Congress party’s ‘evil rule’. Now Chandra Babu is trying hard to get TRS also into his camp. TRS president has also indicated a few days back that he can’t rule out the possibility of an alliance with TDP.

Yesterday TDP and Communists staged a protest against the increasing prices in the state and TRS also participated in this protest. This is the first time to see TRS and TDP leaders on the same platform after they parted in 2001. They have joined hands together to express their solidarity to the protest against the government and probably both were hoping that this unity turns into a political alliance which would help both the parties.

Seven months before the election data it has become pretty apparent that no party will ‘rule’ this time. There is a high probability of ‘hung assembly’ in the next general elections and thus alliances have become very important for all the political parties.

Given the Congress, TDP and PRP and the three ‘big’ parties in the state, it has become quite crucial as to who will win the support of the remaining parties in the state. All the parties left no stone unturned in order to form a proper coalition and as of now TDP has the upper hand.

PRP, led by Chiranjeevi has tried very hard to form an alliance with the communists. However, the communists have denied this offer and decided to go with Chandra Babu Naidu’s TDP. The lack of political experience of Chiranjeevi and his party was clearly seen in the way Chandra Babu handled the situation and turned the communists to his side.

Now that the communists are gone, PRP is trying to ally with TRS, the other major party in the state. TRS president Chandra Sekhar Rao did not rule out the possibility of a coalition with PRP. However political observers feel that Chandra Babu will affect TRS also. If that happens Congress and PRP will have to contest alone in the next elections and TDP along with TRS and Communists.

We need to see hoe Chiranjeevi will handle this situation and attract the TRS leaders. PRP, though did not admit, is in dire need of a coalition and believes that going alone will severely affect their winning chances.

Yesterday, the first coalition in the state was confirmed for the next general elections to be held in five months from now. Telugu Desam Party and the Communists (CPM as well as CPI) have officially declared that these parties will work together in the next elections with the sole aim of bringing down the Congress party.

There was a lot of confusion as to how the coalitions will shape for the past few months. CPI had always been saying that they would like to work with Chiranjeevi’s PRP party while CPM wanted to go with TDP. At a time it was also rumored that the Comuunists parties will split and each of them will go with a separate party. Adding to the chaos was TRS which initially said that it is with TDP but later changed their stand a few days ago.

This will be the situation in a country like India which has hundreds of political parties. However, now that the Communists and TDp have officially declared the picture seems to be a bit clearer.

(TDP and Communists), (Congress and TRS), (PRP alone)

The communist parties of the state organized ‘great protest’ against the state government yesterday in the Telangana region. This protest was mainly focused on the land allocation policies being followed by the Congress party ruling the state. The Congress party has promised to allot house sites for all the poor in the state before they were elected to power in the previous elections. However this promise was not fulfilled and since then the Communists have repeatedly fought on the same issue.

In yesterday’s protest, the Communists have criticized the Government for allocating hundreds of acres to the special economic zones and the Coastal corridor both of which favor the corporate sector of the state. They questioned the Government as to why it is not able to allocate a small house site for the needy when it is able to gather hundreds of acres for the corporates.

They called for a revolution against the Government and asked the people to vote against Congress in the next general elections.  They then picketed the Collectorate along with hundreds of people and submitted a request to the District Collector to allocate 60 sq. yards to the poor people without a home.

All the opposition parties in the state have decided to organize a ‘Maha Dharna’ protesting the decision taken by the ruling party Congress in favor of the Coastal Corridor. This is a project aimed at developing the coastal line from Sriakkulam to Kakinada. However, this project was hugely opposed by parties on the grounds that this would make thousands of families who live on the coast homeless.

So, all the parties have decided to organize Maha Dharna (Great Agitation) today in the district of Visakhapatnam. It was publicized that the presidents of all the opposition parties would attend this Dharna. However, none of the parties except CPI had sent their leaders which already made the Maha Dharna’ an ordinary Dharna.

Adding to this, the weather forecast of Visakhpatnam suggests that there will be a huge rain today in the district and the it has already started raining in some parts of the district as I’m writing this. So, in effect the Maha Dharna was a complete flop. Congress should be rejoicing on seeing this!

Devender Gaud, who commited a blunder by leaving TDP in the wrong time to establish his own party, is now in the working hard to keep his political future alive. A few months back, he left TDP and started his own party with an agenda to fight for Telangana. TDPs’ sudden change in policy supporting Telanga, was big blow to Gaud and put him in a fix.

As Congress and TDP are anyway out of question, Gaud is trying to join with PRP. Yesterday he has talked to PRP leaders about a posible coalition in the upcoming elections and said that PRP has responded positively. He also talked to CPI and asked them to join hands with PRP to defeat Congress and TDP.

An interesting point here is that Gaud left TDP with a solo agenda of fighting for Telangana (though his actual intention was to become the chief minister of this region). But now he is trying to join with CPI which is totally against a separate state for Telanga and PRP which has not yet declared its policy on Telanga. This shows how miserable Gaud’s current postion is. 

Off late it has been rumored that CPI leader Narayana has deliberately forced his party’s Central committee not to take a decision about the coalitions in the coming general elections. With elections impending in 5 months, the Communists have not yet decided on their coalition strategies and Narayana’s reluctance to go along with TDP has been sighted as the reason for this delay. It has been an open secret that CPI wishes to go along with PRP and CPM with TDP. However the two communist parties will have to go with a single party and thus this dilemma.

When Narayana was asked about this and his role in the unexpected delay in the decision, he said he is not the supremo in his party and that he cannot influence his party to delay the decision. He said that he is not that powerful and that the Central committee is still pondering over this issue and that a decision will be delivered soon. He added that though CPI and CPM have different opinions about the coalitions, both the parties will abide by the decision of the Central committee and work together in the next elections.