The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) does not fancy its prospects in the gram panchayat elections on Tuesday and two other subsequent phases in view of the strong ‘advantage Congress’ wind blowing across the region after that party raised hopes of creating Telangana State.
The TRS claimed to have won 279 sarpanch posts unanimously, mostly in north Telangana districts, but the party supporters are in the fray in hundreds of other villages without much hope of winning.
Ruling party factor
Apart from the Congress wave sweeping the region, another reason why the TRS has given up hope is the ruling party factor that played a major role in the local body elections.
The TRS is obviously not keen on these elections because the people in villages would like to have sarpanches belonging to the ruling party as they would be able to deliver goods better.
Moreover, these elections are being held on non-party basis.
In contrast to the TRS, the Congress and the TDP also had locally identifiable leaders to win the mandate of people even where the Telangana movement was strong.
Money power
Whereas, the leadership of the TRS was only emerging now but it was not expected to tackle the electoral manipulations and the money power of the bigger parties.
It was in these circumstances that the TRS has taken the elections as a passing phase, a senior party leader said.
Former TRS MP of Warangal B. Vinod Kumar, who toured some villages in Wardhannapet of Warangal district, told The Hindu that the party will increase its share of votes though the voting will not be on political issues, particularly separate Telangana.
“I do not think that the issue of Telangana will weigh in the minds of voters because the voting pattern will depend on other factors like social background of candidates and group politics.”
But, the ensuing elections to territorial constituencies, municipalities and municipal corporations will depend on political issues because the polls will be party based, he added.
