HYDERABAD: At a time when all opposition parties at the national level are making efforts to join hands with each other to have a straight contest against the BJP-led NDA in the coming Lok Sabha elections to ensure that the anti-establishment vote does not split, Telangana may witness a different scenario. It appears that the state is heading for multi-cornered contests in the next Assembly polls.
Following the announcement by M Kodandaram that his newly-floated Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) would fight the polls on its own without allying with any other party, it is more or less clear that the state is going to witness multi-cornered contests. Though all the opposition parties are vying with one another to defeat the TRS at the hustings, formation of a grand alliance of all opposition parties looks a remote possibility.
Though the main opposition party, Congress, is open to political alliances, no other party is ready for tie-ups. Already, BJP, CPM-led Bahujan Left Front (BLF), formed with smaller parties and people’s organisations, CPI and TDP, have announced that they would go it alone.
Though his party’s presence in the state is zero at present, Janasena chief Pawan Kalyan said that his party was also keen on contesting the elections in the state alone.It is assumed in political circles that multi-cornered contests will be advantageous to the TRS which won the 2014 Assembly elections which it had fought on its own. Thus, opposition disunity and multi-cornered contests might prove disadvantageous to the Congress which is moving heaven and earth to come to power in the state.
Sensing this danger, senior Congress leaders like V Hanumantha Rao tried to persuade Kodandaram not to float a new party. According to sources, TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy also had made a vain bid to make the TJAC chairman shelve his plan of floating a party. The Congress’ electoral fortunes will, therefore, depend on the future moves of Kodandaram.