Telangana TDP leaders L.Ramana and Prakash Reddy, made a sort of sensational comments in a recent interview in a TV channel. People in Telangana who still have soft corner towards TDP because of the reforms introduced by late NTR in Telangana find fault with the statements of these two leaders. They made these comments while analyzing the reasons for TDP’s current position in Telangana.
When the moderator of the program asked about TDP joining hands with other parties, they made a comment that, in 2019, without the support of TDP, no party can come to the power. They added, whenever KCR made attempts to stab TDP, in fact congress got strengthened, though TDP was not weakened. TDP leader also analyzed that Revuri Prakash Reddy analyzed that after KCR attempts to make TDP zero in Telangana, Congress became so powerful and now both TRS and Congress will have neck-to-neck fight in 2019 elections. Because of this neck-to-neck fight, it seems none of these two parties can form the government individually and eventually have to depend on TDP to form the government.
Obviously, in an attempt to highlight how crucial TDP “may” become in future in Telangana, they have actually revealed how pathetic the situation is. It is to be recalled that TDP-BJP alliance got 20 seats in Telangana in 2014 elections while Congress party got 21 seats. TDP got 19.5% vote share and BJP got 7% votes, i.e. together they got around 26.5% vote share where as Congress got 25% vote share. Even though “operation akarsh” by KCR has damaged TDP a lot the core vote bank of TDP not damaged to that extent, thanks to strong base for the party in BCs. SO the anchor in the program, who himself is known as strong supporter of TDP asked these two leaders – “What can you do with 3-8% votebank that you have”. For this, these TDP leaders replied that it may increase to 10-15% by the time of elections. SO, it seems even these leaders as well as this anchor forgot that, it is just 3 years back, TDP had 19.5% vote bank.
What people though after watching this program is this – If the leaders are aiming to completely revive the party and spend all their energies to bring back the glory that the party had couple of years back, they at least raise to the level that they will become crucial in the upcoming elections. But if these leaders themselves, aiming to occupy the third slot in the top parties list and hope the parties occupying the first two slots miss the magic figure and then one of those 2 parties will come to this third largest party to reach that magic number to form the government – at best it could be called “wishful thinking”. Party that still has cadre and that still has soft corner from people belonging to different social strata, doesn’t go anywhere with this kind of wishful thinking. What it needs is a vision and energetic leaders that commit to that vision. Operation Akarshas have become common in many states in India. But we have seen it several times, parties who once had zero strength or single digit strength in legislative assemblies have at later point of time got clean majority!!!
