The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:
Amidst the election fever gripping the country, there was yet another important election that happened in Telangana in this month. On March 14th, elections were held for two seats for the Graduate constituencies of the Telangana Legislative Council. When elections for these seats were held in 2015, the BJP and TRS had won one seat each. With the recent setbacks that TRS received in some elections, this election was also keenly watched by many to see if the BJP can retain its lone seat in the Legislative Council or will TRS retain its seat and also usurp BJP’s seat.
Seat#1: The Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahbubnagar Graduates Constituency
In 2015, BJP’s N. Ramchander Rao defeated the TRS party in this Graduate constituency elections for the MLC seat. Predictably, he was given the ticket for contesting again this time. However, KCR’s unpredictable surprise move started tilting the tables in favour of the TRS. KCR chose to field P.V.Narasimha Rao’s daughter, Ms. Surabhi Vani as TRS’s candidate for these polls.
Ms. Surabhi Vani is not merely P.V.Narasimha Rao’s daughter. She has been running a group of educational institutions from many decades. She is actually quite well known in the educational circles because of her involvement in this field from many decades. She has also never taken political stances nor was she a member of any political party. Her candidature came as a whiff of fresh air for people who were vexed with the same old politicians. Plus, her candidature made perfect sense for a constituency that consists of only graduate voters.
KCR then went on an advertising spree, telling the voters how electing Ms. Surabhi Vani is actually a sign of respect for P.V. Narasimha Rao, the son of Telangana. He was extremely successful in weaning away P.V.Narasimha Rao from the Congress party and having his pictures put up on TRS posters! Given the recent setbacks, the TRS went all out in deploying many ministers and MLAs for the election campaign. TRS’s campaign was therefore focused on three aspects – the qualification of the candidate herself, the lineage of the candidate, and criticism of the BJP on multiple fronts (not enough given to Telangana; increasing fuel prices etc). The success of the strategy is evident from the fact that nearly 40,000 (out of the ~1.5 lakh who voted for BJP) chose Ms. Surabhi Vani as their second preference. This wouldn’t have been possible if TRS put up some other candidate.
This episode is also a stark reminder of how pathetic the Congress party is. In their egotistic quest to satisfy the Gandhi family, the Congress party has ditched every single icon of their party, both at the national and at the states level. There are hundreds of leaders from the Congress who have made yeomen contributions to the party and country, but Congress party’s conscious attempts to ensure they remove all these leaders from public memory is finally showing up in electoral results too. This trend of other parties choosing to fete icons of the country who belonged to the Congress party is really a welcome move.
The BJP candidate Mr. Ramachandra Rao put up a spirited fight but fell short by ~11,000 votes. There were two key drawbacks in this campaign strategy. There was less focus on what Mr. Ramchandra Rao did as an MLC for the past 6 years and more focus on what the TRS didn’t do. There was less focus on what Mr. Ramchandra Rao did as an MLC and more focus on what the BJP leadership has been doing all along. There was also the election fatigue that set in – it was only just a couple of months ago that the elections to the GHMC were held – the TRS succeeded in bringing in more graduates to the booth than the BJP was. Mr. Ramchandra Rao also does command a good standing in the constituency and the party. But he was outsmarted this time by the TRS through the choice of candidate and campaign strategy.
Seat#2: The Khammam-Warangal-Nalgonda Graduates Constituency
This seat was already held by the TRS as it won the seat in 2015. TRS’s candidate Palla Rajeshwar Reddy was already seen as a sure shot winner of this election. However, the most surprising aspect of this seat was not the winner but the runner-up. A journalist Naveen who is popularly known as Teenmaar Mallanna (after the character of the person he plays in his satirical weekly show Teenmar) had entered the fray as an independent candidate for the second time. He lost the 2015 elections too (after taking Congress’s support at that time). However, this time, Teenmaar Mallanna came second, garnering nearly 1 lakh votes for himself as an independent! This seat was however never seen as a danger to the TRS. For those of you who are keen, the BJP came fourth in this constituency.
The swinging electoral results since 2018!
The results of the latest MLC elections are indicative of the swinging electoral results since 2018 in Telangana. The TRS won big in 2018 assembly elections; received a huge setback in 2019 Lok Sabha elections; won a assembly bypoll and also swept local body polls later in 2019; received two huge setbacks in an assembly bypoll and the GHMC elections in 2020; has won two MLC seats in 2021!
It’s been a see-saw battle ever since the 2018 victory in the Assembly polls. These electoral results are a reminder of a few things – though the BJP is rising as the main opposition party it still has an arduous road ahead to put up a stiff fight continuously; the Congress is no more a viable option for people; the TRS will have to sweat it out for all elections and will not have it easy like in the 2014-2018 phase.
For now, this round goes to the TRS.
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