As we wind down the year 2018, it would be interesting to see how political parties fared in 2018. In this series, we will see how the year 2018 was for major political parties- that Telugu people are interested in.
(Click here for TRS political round-up)
For TDP, this is not a great year really as it ended-up doing things it didn’t initially planned to do and some of the friends turned foes. More than all these humiliating defeat in Telangana elections make 2018 not-so-great year for TDP. Let’s see the key events of TDP in 2018.
Out of NDA and No Confidence motion
One of the key events for TDP this year is coming out of NDA and Modi’s cabinet. TDP never planned this actually. YS Jagan led YSRCP planned it’s MPs to resign citing the reason of fighting for Special category status for residual Andhra Pradesh. There were some analysts pointing that – if TDP continues in NDA and YSRCP MPs resign, it may have some positive impact for YSRCP. Also YSRCP was planning to move no confidence motion in the house. So, Chandra babu, who is known for political acumen, took the decision of coming out of NDA and introduce No confidence motion on Modi government in the last minute. Later, when NCM was introduced in the house, Galla Jayadev’s speech and TDP MPs fight inside and outside parliament got TDP positive mileage. But many people still point out that it was TDP party that enjoyed cabinet posts for almost 4 years and only during the election year, CBN and TDP came out of union government – and this might be political stunt.
Friends turned foes – Janasena
Later in the month of March, Pawan Kalyan fired salvos on TDP party and it’s supremo Chandra Babu for letting people down and alleged serious corruption charges on TDP leaders. Later also, he has highlighted the alleged corruption and rowdy behavior of some of the TDP MLAs like Chintamaneni. It is known news that Pawan and his Janasena supported TDP in 2014 and it is definitely one of the reasons for the victory of TDP – as is evident from the number of seats TDP won in coastal Andhra region, where Pawan’s clout is strong. Pawan moving away from TDP in 2018 is definitely a setback to TDP as the difference between votes polled for TDP and YSRCP is just around 2% in 2014. We need to wait and see how and whether CBN will be able to nullify the impact of this move of Pawan.
Arch-rival becomes ally – Congress
In a rather surprising move, TDP allied with Congress in Telangana elections with sole aim of defeating TRS. Even though media hyped the Praja kootami in which TDP and Congress are part of, people out rightly rejected this combo. All the math that considered summing up of TDP vote percentage and Congress vote percentage went miserably wrong. Of course some analysts pointed before elections itself that, this alliance will boomerang as TDP and Congress cadres who fought for decades at ground level are not willing to join hands.
Humiliating defeat in Telangana elections
More than all the above events, one incident that made 2018 bitter for TDP is humiliating defeat in Telangana elections. In a span of 9 years (2009 to 2018) TDP’s position fell from 39 seats and 28% votes to 2 seats and 3.5% votes. Had CBN not taken this Telangana election seriously it would have been different but he extensively campaigned and put very serious efforts. Despite all such efforts, TDP faced humiliating defeat and that brought morale of the cadres down. Nandamuri family and TDP politics are inseparable. Hari Krishna passing away this year also had an impact on TDP fans. Moreover, Nandamuri Suhasini, whose candidature in Kukatpally was hyped too much by media, losing election with huge margin in TDP’s strong forte also had impact on morale of TDP cadres.
Overall:
Overall it is not a great year for TDP. All the positive vibes TDP got after Nandyal by-polls are gone now and TDP has to face elections in AP within 6 months. We will have to wait and see how will be TDP faring in 2019.
