Hyderabad: After a disastrous defeat in the recent assembly elections in Telangana, Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party has devised a new strategy – to jump on KCR’s bandwagon.
In the state elections, the Telangana Rastra Samiti had contested alone while the Congress and the TDP fought together under the ‘Mahakutami’. TDP president Chandrababu Naidu had rigorously campaigned in the state.
While the TDP focused on the ‘Andhra’ sentiment, the TRS stressed on the fact that if the Mahakutami wins then Telangana will be treated as a mere offshoot of Andhra Pradesh with Chandrababu’s dominance in the government.
“Do we welcome Andhra’s rule in Telangana even after separating from the state? Have we forgotten the destruction caused by Andhra leaders, including Chandrababu’s,” KCR asked during his rallies as the crowd broke into loud cheers.
Not only did his tactic work out, KCR came back to power with a thumping victory winning 88 assembly seats out of 120. The Congress-led Mahakutami could only secure 21 seats and TDP was confined to only two seats.
Now, Naidu wants to tread KCR’s path and use the same sentiment to TDP’s gain in Telangana in upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
While Naidu wants to infuse the sons of soil concept in Telangana, he also wants to sever KCR’s influence in his home turf Andhra Pradesh.
Naidu’s son and Minister for Information Technology Nara Lokesh said in a rally, “Our state is Andhra, our caste is Andhra and Andhra is our pride. Do we invite others to rule us?”
According to an analyst, the TDP has wittingly tried to intensify the negative impression on KCR in the people of Andhra by popularizing the fact that the TRS worked against the state on the floor of the Lower House regarding the issue of special status.
The TDP leaders have time and again claimed that there is nothing wrong in projecting the pride of the culture and state and that they don’t provoke people in the name of religion or community.