TELANGANA: The fortunes of the TRS went up, down and again up in a matter of over five months, proving that public opinion is always dynamic.
Since the December Assembly elections, the pink party went through a yo-yo ride -- its prospects zooming to dizzying heights when it cornered 88 of the 119 seats and then in the Lok Sabha elections, the graph coming down crashing, leaving only nine seats in its kitty.
In the local body elections, it soared like an eagle once again.
In the elections to the ZPTCs and MPTCs, the TRS battered Congress and the BJP out of shape.
The two opposition parties showed a few green shoots sprouting in the LS polls when they won among them seven seats but after the local body polls, they are once again back in the dumps.
Though for each election, the criteria the people look for voting is different, yet the point that remains is that unless one does not do his homework, one is likely to pay a heavy price.
Key seats lost
In the Assembly polls, all energies were concentrated on winning.
With the then AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu trying to make a come back in the State, the TRS was quick enough to change strategy and began inflaming Telangana passion to stoke flames of hatred against Naidu. The gamble paid off and the TRS won the polls hands down.
According to TRS leaders, in the Lok Sabha elections, they lost the most important seats of Nizamabad and Karimnagar. The defeat of Chief Minister’s daughter K Kavitha in Nizamabad and that of party senior leader B Vinod Kumar in Karimnagar is something the party leadership is not able to come to terms with even now.
After analysing the result, Vinod Kumar had said that it was the overconfidence of the TRS candidates that had done the party in.
The party hoped to corner all the 16 LS seats and the contestants remained oblivious to the machinations of the opposition parties in winning the seats.
In Nizamabad and Karimnagar, the ‘invisible’ pact between Congress and BJP helped in bringing down the two leviathans of the party. The Congress also pulled a sort of coup against the TRS by winning three seats and losing two seats narrowly.
The one that gave the most satisfaction to the grand old party and a lot of heartburn to the TRS was the victory of Revanth Reddy from Malkajgiri. The TRS was determined to defeat him in the Assembly elections from Kodangal and it succeeded in its efforts.
When the same leader appeared once again in Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency, the TRS leaders felt that KCR’s charisma would defeat him and that there was no need for them to bother about the election.
Just as the way a tree does not forget the axe, Revanth Reddy worked intelligently and capitalising on the Andhra voters, he avenged his Kodangal humiliation.
Unofficial tie-up
Having learnt a lesson the hard way in the Lok Sabha election, the TRS appeared to have realised that it cannot hide behind the shadow of KCR and hope to win the elections and began doing the homework meticulously.
The TRS swept all the three MLC seats in Local Authority constituencies by concentrating on micro-management - dealing with the voters individually and ensuring that they would vote for its candidates. Then again in local body elections too, the party left nothing to chance though they knew in their bones that in MPTC and ZPTC elections, people would go in for the ruling party.
As soon as the polling was over, TRS moved its candidates to camps to prevent the possibility of the Congress-BJP unofficial tie-up throwing a spanner in its run to capture ZPs. The hard work that party working president KTR had put in had worked and the TRS is sitting pretty with all the ZPs and most of the Mandal Parishads in its kitty.
The Congress and the BJP drew blank in the districts from where it had won Lok Sabha seats. The TRS had the last laugh in Nizamabad and Karimnagar where it captured the Zilla Parishads and Mandal Parishads.
The TRS leaders say that they had realised that they should remain vigilant round-the-clock, no matter which election it is. “The national or State or local factors do have a bearing but one should always look out for booby traps like those that blew up the hopes of winning Nizamabad and Karimnagar LS seats,” one leader said.