There are still a lot of ifs and buts about Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR)’s Federal Front idea, but the Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief seems to have a larger game plan. For one, the snap polls experiment he tried to delink Assembly from the Lok Sabha polls to avoid mixing of national and state issues succeeded. KCR not only got a massive mandate thanks to his welfare schemes and development works but was able to dismantle the grand alliance of the Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Jana Samithi and the Communist Party of India pitted against him in the state.
The Telangana CM doesn’t expect any grave threat from the grand alliance and hopes to bag all 17 LS seats (with ally MIM) in the state.This will help him play his cards well in Delhi as most pre-poll surveys predict a hung House.
KCR has pitched the Federal Front idea promising equitable distribution of available water, power and other national resources more effectively among states, besides free power for agricultural farming. He is also keen to bring revolutionary changes in the administration of the Union government by divesting rural development— Panchayati raj, roads, education and medical health—to the states, keeping with the true spirit of federalism.
That there are not many regional leaders in contemporary South Indian politics who speak both Hindi and English fluently and have a good command over the issues may also help KCR. He also knows it is always the numbers game in Delhi politics. Except in 2014—when Narendra Modi swept the polls, with the BJP singlehandedly crossing the magic number of 272—it has always been a numbers game.
It is common for parties with diverse ideologies to contest elections separately. But when it comes to forming a government, ideological differences will be ignored as opportunistic alliances grab power. Barring perhaps the Communists, most parties have seen such formulations, with the same ones supporting different combinations—like UPA and NDA —to suit their political compulsions at different times.
For KCR, the upside is that he has nothing to lose. Even if a party or a combination of parties comes to power without the TRS’s support, he will remain a powerful leader with the entire state mandate in his favour.
Hoping to play a crucial role at the Centre, he has already prepared the ground for his scion K T Rama Rao, to possibly replace him in the state. The word ‘democracy’, for others, means it is always 51 versus 49. But for Chandrashekar Rao, it is 100 versus zero. When TRS came to power in 2014 with a slender majority—63 MLAs in the House of 119—he was not happy. In the name of achieving Golden Telangana, he started luring MLAs from other parties like the Congress, TDP, BSP, YSR Congress and CPI during his entire four-year term, and increased the tally to 88 before the House was prematurely dissolved in September last year, paving the way for snap polls.
The same KCR got a massive mandate in the second term bagging 88 seats in the same House of 119. But again, he was not satisfied with this number, and started his pet game of fresh inductions, targeting the Congress, TDP and Independents, which have so far put together 12 MLAs into the TRS kitty and increased the tally to 100. This is in addition to his new-found ally, MIM, which has seven MLAs. The induction game has not yet ended, and the TRS gates are still wide open—all this happened within just three months of the Assembly poll results being declared.
Though there is no need for Chandrashekar Rao to go for accretion of his strength given the massive mandate he got, he is keen on seeing a House that has no Opposition, probably to see his scion sit comfortably in the saddle.
KCR has been advocating a theory that the country should be freed from both the Congress and the BJP, and he has already achieved a lot in this direction in Telangana.
Ch V M Krishna Rao
Resident Editor, Telangana
Email: krishnarao@newindianexpress.com