ADILABAD: With just a few days remaining for the upcoming trade union elections at the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), the political landscape is heating up. Political analysts believe that there would be a strong fight for power between the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), which are affiliated with the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Congress, respectively.
Meanwhile, despite Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangham (TBGKS) honorary president K Kavitha calling on union members to work for victory, ground-level leaders and activists seem to lack enthusiasm.
In the previous elections in 2017, the BRS backed-TBGKS won the elections, which in turn, helped the pink party win the Assembly polls in 2018. However, due to regular postponements, no elections have taken place since then.
In the recent Assembly elections, the Congress and the CPI entered into an alliance and won 10 of the 11 seats in the coal belt region. However, experts believe that the dynamics are different in the SCCL elections. As there is no alliance between the AITUC and INTUC, the support in the Assembly elections could be divided in the SCCL trade union elections, they added. However, the INTUC won’t shy away from leveraging the momentum from the grand old party’s recent triumph in the Assembly polls.
On the other hand, even after MLC Kavitha announced the union’s intention to contest, there seems to be a lack of ground-level support for the TBGKS. Earlier, the TBGKS had announced that it would not contest in the union polls. This led to the withdrawal of support from active cadre, who were already engaged in campaigning. However, even before Kavitha could offer clarification and announce that the TBGKS would contest the polls, three key leaders and many others tendered their resignation. Unlike the enthusiasm observed in 2017, the union at the ground level appears to be devoid of any election excitement.
With leaders leaving the TBGKS, the INTUC will look to fortify the grand old party’s position in the coal belt region and ride the coattails of the recent victory in the polls while CPI’s AITUC would like to continue its good showing in the union SCCL polls. In the last six elections, the AITUC has emerged victorious three times, INTUC once and TBGKS twice. As the seventh trade union elections approach on December 27, anticipation and speculation surround the unfolding political dynamics within
the SCCL.