The stage is set for counting of votes for the just concluded general elections in the State even as the major political parties are betting big on their prospects in Telangana and Seemandhra regions.
The announcement of results for the municipal bodies and the local bodies heightened the tension among the political parties over their fate in the general elections. Each party is interpreting the outcome of the local body/municipal elections in the way that suits it.
Coming as they are after the passage of the State bifurcation Bill, the current elections assumed significance in the light of the perceived opposition to the Congress in the Seemandhra region and a vote in favour of the TRS in Telangana region. Unlike the earlier elections, the polls this time around turned prestigious for some political parties as careers of some important leaders are at stake.
Prominent among such leaders is Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu who is keen to take over the reins in Andhra Pradesh after sitting in the opposition for two successive terms. With his party engaged in an absorbing battle with the YSR Congress of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, Mr. Naidu is hoping that his party will beat the expectations and repeat the performance it had shown in the polls to local bodies/municipalities.
For Mr. Jagan Reddy, the elections are a do-or-die battle for his party which lagged behind the TDP in the local bodies/municipalities polls in spite of the intensive campaigning on the promise of ushering in ‘Rajanna rajyam (late YSR’s regime acclaimed by the YSRCP as pro-poor).
The Congress, which was hitherto a major contender in the region, however, fell far short of expectations in the Seemandhra region following the reversals it reportedly suffered as a consequence of conceding the separate Telangana State. Several senior leaders deserted the party while the latter had to concede space to the YSR Congress as was evident from the results of the elections to the local bodies/municipalities.
There is equally intense debate on the prospects of the major outfits in the Telangana region where the Congress locked horns with the TRS in a campaign that essentially focussed on their efforts to achieve separate Statehood. The results to the first Assembly of the new State have become prestigious for both the TRS and the Congress, each of which is confident of emerging as the single largest party.
The TDP, though went to the polls in alliance with the BJP, could not succeed in re-establishing its firm holding in the region for, what its leaders claimed, the campaign launched by the TRS that the TDP was anti-Telangana and this partially helped in keeping voters away from the cycle party. Even as the guessing game is on among the political parties, pollsters had a field day predicting different permutations and combinations that could finally emerge once the results are out.
Complicating the situation further are the surveys/exit polls conducted by leading television channels which left the parties more confused over the possible outcome on Friday.
