KCRs 3 U-Turns in one week

 

The following article was written for The Commune. Pasting it here for reference:

The Telangana CM, KCR seems to have taken the electoral reverses he has suffered very seriously. Over the course of this week, he has done multiple U-turns that is currently baffling the crores of people in the state!

The first big U-turn was on Sunday, December 27th.

In a series of tweets released by the Telangana CM’s office, we were told that the government is “not a business entity”. It is “not government’s responsibility to buy and sell”. The tweet thread also told us that the government has incurred a total loss of nearly INR 7500 crores because the government purchased crops at MSP and sold at lower rates. And then we are told that the farmer now has the freedom to sell anywhere he/she wants! We are told that the new central government laws have anyway enabled this option and therefore there is no point in the government continuing to go to their homes and purchasing the same.

KCR and his party leaders have used very acerbic language to describe the new farm laws. KCR supported the alleged Bharat Bandh on December 8th and had his entire cadre participate in the bandh to disrupt normal life of the people. It was important to note that no farmers took part in those protests! Today, farmers are questioning him as to why he so vehemently opposed the laws; why he was so adamant on what crops should be cultivated by them and has now made this big U-turn. We are yet to hear from the CM himself on why his thought process has changed now.

The second big U-turn was on Monday, December 28th.

KCR bought in a very controversial Land Regularization Scheme (LRS) in September. He has also stopped registrations across the entire state of any non-agricultural property for more than three months. He ignored the criticism from many citizens who simply couldn’t register any property despite having all proper documentation. The state government garnered tens of crores of money just from the application fee of Rs.1000/- for the LRS.

On Monday, KCR’s government announced that registrations of “re-sale” plots is now allowed without having to wait for the outcome of the LRS. This basically means that previously registered land plots can now be sold and registered without any further delay. This helped clear a major confusion in the minds of lakhs of people, simply because many were questioning why the government should register the properties in the first place if those properties didn’t have requisite permission!

The second big U-Turn has bought a big relief to the lakhs of citizens across the state. Coupled with the High Court direction to resume registrations for the other non-agricultural properties, the uncertainty that KCR subjected the people for 3 months is finally gone. The LRS still hasn’t been finalized for new plots of non-agricultural lands though.

The third big U-turn was on Wednesday, December 30th.

KCR was very vehement in his criticism of the Ayushman Bharat program. He called it very inferior to the Arogyasree program that was already being implemented in the state. In his characteristic style, he used acerbic language to deride the program and asked anyone with guts to come to a debate with his minister at a local chourasta! Nearly two years after deriding the program, his government announced yesterday that they will now participate in the Ayushman Bharat program too!

Why these U-Turns?

Immediately after the loss in the GHMC elections, KCR scheduled a visit to Delhi and met the Prime Minister and many other Union ministers. There is a section of analysts who believe that some of these U-turns are a result of those interactions.

Another section of analysts believes that KCR has understood from the recent electoral reverses that some of his policies are hurting people more than benefitting them. The resentment in public was very strong for the hardships they had to undergo for reasons not known to them. Therefore, all these U-turns are seen as an attempt to course correct the mistakes of the past.

There is another section that is wondering whether KCR will dilute some of the centre’s provisions and then pin the blame on the BJP for any hardships people will face. For example, he has announced that he will remove procurement centres from the villages and farmers will now have to go to the APMCs with their produce. This section of analysts is wondering if KCR will tinker with purchasing at MSP and then pin the blame on the BJP.

Whatever the reasons are and however acerbic the criticism of these schemes by KCR was in the past, these U-turns are indeed very welcome and are of immense benefit to the citizens of the state. These will of course cause some strong political debates and perhaps churning also to take place. With these course corrections, KCR will now seek to get back the support of the people. The BJP will claim credit for these U-turns. In case you are wondering how the Congress will react, don’t bother! They are still debating whom to select as it’s state President after the current incumbent resigned after the GHMC elections.

KCR’s Mega U-turn on Farm Laws

The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:

The new farm laws are equivalent to honey coated knife, thundered Telangana CM KCR. “Farmers, not terrorists” roared his son KTR during the Bharat Bandh protests in which no farmers but only the TRS cadre enthusiastically participated. What was the link to terrorists and farmers is a mystery that only KTR can solve!

Infact in October, KCR was adamant that the new farm laws should not be implemented and even announced that his government will go to the doorstep of the farmer and buy the produce directly from them. KCR’s usage of acerbic language such as “honey coated swords” didn’t find many takers from the farming segment. It did find many takers in the pliant media though!

Now, in December 2020, three months after resorting to acerbic criticism and the charade of Bharat Bandh, KCR did a mega U-Turn! Infact, many are sarcastically commenting that this U-turn is bigger than all the U-turns that exists on the roads of Telangana! In a series of tweets released yesterday by the Telangana CM’s office, we are now told that the government is “not a business entity”. It is “not government’s responsibility to buy and sell”. Keeping the hardship of COVID in mind, the government had decided to setup collection centers in the villages itself but this isn’t a viable option going forward.

The tweet thread also told us that the government has incurred a total loss of nearly INR 7500 crores because the government purchased crops at MSP and sold at lower rates. And then we are told that the farmer now has the freedom to sell anywhere he/she wants! We are told that the new central government laws have anyway enabled this option and therefore there is no point in the government continuing to go to their homes and purchasing the same.

KCR also runs a scheme called “Rythu Bandhu” – a scheme that transfers “INR 4,000/- per acre per farmer each season for purchase of inputs”. That totals to 8000 per year per acre per farmer. For this season, KCR was insistent that this scheme will be applicable to only those farmers who produce the crops that the government tells them to produce! This led to a massive uproar in the state but KCR didn’t budge at that point of time.

In yesterday’s tweet thread, we were also told that the government will now not tell the farmers what crop to produce in order to get benefits. The farmers now have the freedom to produce what they wish to and sell them to whomsoever they wish to! And this is the essence of the 3 farm bills that the Narendra Modi government is already implementing since June. KCR’s acerbic and meaningless outbursts only led to him agreeing that the new farm laws are the way forward for the farming community.

The tweet thread also suggested guidelines to the farmers to streamline how they sell their produce. Various committees at various levels will help achieve this streamlining process. While the BJP will of course see this as a political victory for them, the end goal of having farmers benefit from this choice has been achieved in Telangana.

Every single critic of the farm laws out there has at one point of time or the other suggested the exact reforms that the Modi government has now dared to implement. That the protests are limited to farmers from Punjab and are not prevalent anywhere else in the country is testimony to the basic character of these laws. It looks like the Modi government has scored yet another winner through these farm laws.

From being in a ‘hurry’ to double farmer income to missing Sonia Gandhi’s NAC: Bizarre excuses Communists give to put farm laws on hold

 

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:

“Put the farm laws on hold, uphold farmers’s rights” screamed the Op-Ed headline in The Hindu today. In her defense, the author gives multiple convincing examples on why Prime Minister Narendra Modi must “put the farm laws on hold”. 

Foremost amongst them is that “Having set a target of doubling of farmers’ income by 2022, the Modi government seems to be in a hurry.” Oh boy, what a crime it is to be in a hurry! Since they have anyway suffered for 70 years, what exactly is the hurry of Prime Minister Modi now to make their lives better? This crass urgency to make the lives of the farmers of our country has to be immediately curbed. This is definitely not what is expected from the Modi government. He must take it slow, read intellectual stuff published in esteemed publications such as The Hindu and let the farmers’ struggle as they have for 70 years! 

Two full paragraphs are dedicated to the section pompously titled – “It’s about corporatisation”. The essence of the two paragraphs is that “without adequately skilling, training and empowering the small and marginal farmers to become competitive…. the government bought in the laws in the ordinance route”.  

What does “without adequate skilling, training and empowering” mean? The author doesn’t explain. It is left to our imagination. For example, Soil Health cards are provided to crores of farmers across the country to know what crop is best for their soil. Would that count as skilling them to be competitive? The author doesn’t bother to get into these mundane specifics because she must focus on words such as “empowerment”!  You may also get a doubt as why the author is arguing about “ordinance route” in a section titled “It’s about corporatisation”, but the fault lies with you to expect a coherent argument from the communists! 

We are also told that “the farmers are now faced with new amendments to Electricity Act which propose to fully privatise distribution of power, a crucial input in farm irrigation”. You would read this and definitely think that this is indeed a bad move being contemplated. Except that the new amendments don’t stipulate anything of this kind. You may please read the proposed amendments here and come to your own conclusion too. The communists are adept at this kind of fearmongering without having to actually fear about being called out for their lies.  

The author asks us “Should there be efforts to lower input costs for farmers?” You would think – great question! Only to come to know that Prime Minister Modi already talked about lowering input costs way back in the year 2016! Soil Health cards, Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Neem-coated Urea etc have all led to a reduction of input costs and an increase in the output. But since communists are typically not familiar with happenings on the ground, we can’t really blame them for asking questions for which answers already exists. 

The author tells us that the government has “fixed an ambitious target of 10,000 Farmer-Producer organisations by 2023-24…. but only 881 FPOs have registered so far”. Yes, this is very convincing to “put the farm laws on hold” because the target set for the year 2023 may not be met! And just in case you are not convinced, we are now told Swadeshi Jagran Manch, an affiliate of BJP, also wants changes to MSP laws so therefore we must “put the farm laws on hold”! 

On MSP, the author tells us that even today “the payment of MSP is not mandatory inside the mandis”. Basically, the farmer today has the choice to either sell at MSP to the government or sell it in the mandi. The farmer will continue to have this choice but will also have more options to whom to sell the produce to. The farmer is no more bound to the politically controlled mandis in many states. The Prime Minister has guaranteed that MSP will stay. But the communists continue to spread lies about how MSP is being taken away and the farmer will stand to lose! 

However, it is the conclusion of the article that takes the cake. The entire communist ecosystem is missing the glory days of the National Advisory Council that was headed by Sonia Gandhi. “Whatever be the criticism, the NAC during the previous UPA regime played a significant role…”. It doesn’t matter to the author that Sonia Gandhi’s party has been in favour of these amendments during those glory days of the NAC. While we understand their angst of missing out the various benefits of the NAC regime, the communists must realise that the people have rejected that regime not once, but twice! 

The Prime Minister has clearly stated that these laws have not been enacted overnight but are a culmination of nearly 20 years of arguments and debates! The communists new found argument about “consensus” is amusing because we are a country of 130 crore people – a consensus is impossible! The political nature of these protests is evident from the fact that only farmers from Punjab are heading the protests. Nowhere else in the country do we have these protests. Perhaps time for the communists to reflect why this is the case! 

Analysis of DDC election results by most of the English media in India will put common sense to shame

 

The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:

Shekhar Gupta’s The Print told us yesterday that “Gupkar Alliance and Congress wins big in J&K DDC polls”. If you go to the link now, the word “Congress” is gone from the headline, but you can take a look at the full link name in the browser and you will see what I am talking about! Congress won a massive 26 seats out of the 280 seats that went to polls. Mysteriously, Shekhar Gupta thought this amounts to winning big!

NDTV did a show on “Analysing the Gupkar Alliance win”. News18 tells us that “Gupkar Alliance Sweeps Maiden DDC Elections With 110 Seats.  The Gupkar alliance won 110 seats out of the 280 seats that went to polls. Logic dictates that this is not even a win, leaving alone a “sweep” or “winning big” but our English media always finds ways to attribute non-existent things to elevate the Congress ecosystem.

“Poor strike rate of BJP” read the analysis in Hindustan Times. Obviously, the parties in alliance will contest lesser number of seats than parties that are not in alliance! But our English media wants to look for ways to delegitimize the electoral performance of BJP simply because they hate it.

The numbers are there for everyone to see. Contrary to popular imagination, the Congress is not a part of Gupkar Alliance. It comprises of 5 parties that won a total of ~3.9 lakh votes against the 4.9 lakh votes that the BJP won. After putting up a brave face about how the Congress is an independent organization and is not part of the Gupkar alliance, it has now announced support to the Gupkar alliance!

The BJP won 75 seats in the DDC elections. If you had read only the English media all along, you would think that the BJP will perhaps not even win a single seat. The numbers won by each party can only lead to one conclusion of these results – this is as fragmented a verdict as one can ever get. The verdict is reflective of the ground reality in J&K regarding the various issues that are impacting the people.

The BJP is elated because it was written off in the media, yet the ground reality is that there is considerable support for the party in J&K. The Gupkar alliance seemed to have worked more in the favour of the National Conference than the PDP. What else explains the fact that PDP won 27 seats despite getting only a partly 55,000 votes (some of which are votes from other parties of the alliance). The Congress is definitely not a “big winner” here (I can’t believe this actually has to be said!). This severe loss of face for both the PDP and the Congress is perhaps more reflective of the regressive politics of these two parties. But then it is also too much to expect the current Congress party to learn anything from electoral verdicts.

The oft repeated phrase of “In the end, democracy won” is very apt to these elections. A free and fair election was seen as a distant dream for the people of J&K. Democracy can only win once multiple elections like these are conducted peacefully and the people get the governance they voted for. Not through the barrel of the gun or through the speeches of azadi. Article 370 restricted the access to many schemes that the people of India enjoyed. With everything now opening up, it is up to the people to lap them up and vote according to how they are indeed getting benefitted.

The alleged analysis and interpretations of election results by most of the English media in India will put common sense to shame. From the advent of the phrase “moral victory” to even calling the victorious as the losers, these alleged analysts have decided to give up on all sense of objectivity while writing about the results.

From KCR 1.0 to KCR 2.0: 7 reasons why Telangana is getting disillusioned with TRS and why BJP is making in-roads

 

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:

On December 7, 2018, KCR won a landslide in the Telangana Assembly elections that he preponed. The TRS won a massive 88 out of the total 119 seats in the Assembly. Ever since KCR has faced more setbacks than victories. This paradox didn’t happen because of any one event but is a culmination of many missteps. 

The immediate poaching of MLAs from the Congress

Despite winning a landslide, the TRS displayed an unusual urgency in poaching MLAs from the Congress party. The Congress won 19 seats in the 2018 elections, thereby being eligible for the Leader of the Opposition post. One by one, a total of 12 Congress MLAs was poached by the TRS within just a couple of months of winning this landslide. With 2/3rd of the CLP joining the TRS, there was no need to disqualify the legislators! 

KCR did NOT need these 12 MLAs for any support in the Assembly. This move, primarily orchestrated to show the supremacy of KTR, the newly anointed working President of the party, also ensured that there will officially be no leader of opposition in the Telangana Assembly. The torchbearers of democracy weren’t bothered by this blatant suppression of the people’s mandate though.

The delayed cabinet expansion and the exclusion of Harish Rao

On the day of swearing-in, only KCR and Mahmood Ali were sworn in. Despite mounting criticism of a “one-man show”, KCR took nearly 8 weeks to expand the cabinet and that’s when KCR administered the second shock to his cadre. 

By his side ever since he established the party in 2001, was his nephew T Harish Rao. Even KCR’s children entered the fray between the years of 2005 and 2007. After winning the 2014 elections, KCR gave the all-important Irrigation portfolio to Harish Rao. KCR’s pet projects revolved around water – and the promise of a Bangaru Telangana was only possible through minor and major irrigation projects that will solve the water problem of Telangana. One of the key reasons for the landslide in 2018 was the success of many of these irrigation projects. 

Now, it is this Harish Rao that KCR decided to keep out of his expanded cabinet, in February 2019. This simply sent shock waves amongst the cadre. Even non-partisan folks also were dismayed at this blatant sidelining of Harish Rao. 

In the run-up to the 2019 LS elections, Harish Rao’s name was not even included in the star campaigners list. This infuriated the cadre so much that changes were made to the list merely hours after it was released. Harish Rao was finally made the Finance minister after the bad performance of the TRS in the 2019 LS elections. But the damage was already done – this sidelining of one of the real stars of the TRS party by KCR in favour of his immediate family hasn’t been forgotten till date by the people. 

The electoral setbacks and victories ever since

The first electoral setback came in the MLC elections held in March 2019. 3 candidates backed by the TRS (Teachers and Graduate constituencies) lost in these elections. This was the first hint by the people that they aren’t liking this arrogant and poaching behaviour of the TRS leadership.

The bigger setback was in the 2019 LS elections where the TRS won 9 out of the 17 LS seats. More than the numbers, what shocked KCR was the personal loss inflicted by the people. His daughter lost her Nizamabad seat to BJP. KCR’s son was in charge of the Karimnagar seat – that seat was won by the BJP too! KTR even (jokingly) challenged his cousin Harish Rao (in charge of Medak) that Karimnagar will give a larger majority to TRS than Medak will. TRS won Medak by more than 2 lakh vote margin! This was the second hint by the people that they aren’t liking the family enterprise that the TRS has increasingly starting to become. 

The first victory for TRS came from an unusual place. State Congress president Uttam Kumar Reddy, who was already an MLA, contested and won the MP elections. As is the practice in the Congress party, his wife was given the ticket for the MLA by-poll from Huzurnagar. TRS put up a strong fight in the Congress party bastion and won the election with a very handsome majority. This further bolstered the party into thinking that the people are with the TRS and the MLC and LS elections are just an aberration. 

The second victory and this was a big one, came during the Municipal corporation elections in Jan 2020. The TRS swept these elections. In addition to the strong cadre across the state, the TRS was still seen as the party for governance when it came to local issues. TRS won 9 out of the 10 corporations and a whopping 110/120 municipalities in these elections. These results came as a breath of fresh air to the beleaguered TRS and once again established the fact the road to unseat the TRS is an arduous one. 

The Dubbaka by-poll turned the tables yet again on the TRS. BJP’s stunning victory in the backyard of the KCR family bastions delivered a shock to KCR. In a tough election, the BJP won the seat by a thin majority of about 1200 votes, but more importantly delivered a strong punch to the TRS that the opposition in Telangana is not dead. 

The GHMC results are too recent to delve into details again, but the defeat of the TRS in this all-important election has changed the political discourse in the state for good! BJP’s rise as the principal opposition party in the state is now complete. 

The confusing response to the COVID crisis

On March 7, 2020, KCR spoke in the Assembly on COVID. “Why do we need a mask? A scientist told me Corona won’t survive in temperatures greater than 22C”

The same KCR on March 14, 2020 tells us that: “We should not remain mute spectators to Corona. It is a crime if we remain mute. Masks will be needed. 

It took him just 7 days to go from “Why do we need a mask” to “It is a crime not to wear a mask”. KCR announced full support to the Janata curfew and then announced a 10-day lockdown immediately the Janata curfew (even before PM Modi announced a nationwide lockdown). 

KCR’s subsequent five press conferences on were all broadly hailed by the people of the state for being informative, suggestive of what needs to be done, and some dose of humour. The period from April 6th to the next two press conferences on April 19th and May 18th is when it started going downhill for KCR. His jibes at many reporters for asking “silly questions” slowly started to get boring. He somehow thought offence is the best defence, so much so that he wished that reporters writing negative news should be infected with Corona! In one of the press conferences, KCR asked the DGP to arrest all those making jokes in the social media on the Prime Minister of India. You would, of course, not see the alleged liberals take up this crass statement by an elected CM. 

What changed the story for Telangana was the continuous low testing despite an overall increase of the same across the entire country. For many weeks, the government just wouldn’t even release the testing data. The overall positive numbers would also stay around a certain ballpark for a few days before moving to a new ballpark. 

Anyone questioning the frequent change in strategy was admonished by everyone starting from the CM himself. The continuous ignoring of many valid questions regarding the crisis did not go well with the people, yet again evident from the recently concluded GHMC elections. 

The special Assembly sessions for the new Municipal and Revenue acts

KCR has so far called for two special sessions of the state Assembly (each time for two days) to pass two significant legislations. The new Municipal act passed in 2019 establishes new municipal corporations and municipalities in the state. Provisions were made for reducing permissions needed by the citizens for constructions on smaller plots; duties of the councillors, commissioners etc were written in greater detail. But more importantly, it also gave unbridled powers to the state government to in fact cancel resolutions passed by any of these civic bodies; gave the (unelected) collector more power than the (elected) councillors and was therefore seen as an attempt to consolidate the power of the state government rather than empower the local bodies. 

The second major act that KCR bought in was the new Revenue Act. This has been in the making since the year 2017. Significant changes were made to the process of registering lands in the state. The powers of the sub-registrar were reduced and those of the Tahsildar was increased. While the intent and the motive seem very good, this move also had a typical KCR touch. Until the act is notified, he has suspended all registration activity in the state since September of this year! 

In yet another ridiculous ask, he asked all property owners to upload the details of the property onto a website but also asked the caste details of the said owner! A High Court case is still pending on the same. The end result is that despite the act being notified in late October, no registrations of non-agricultural lands are still happening in the state! Imagine not being able to register your property for a whopping three months and imagine the noise the English media would have made if a BJP government stopped registrations for a day, leave alone months! 

Many new acts have been passed seamlessly without such big hindrances. No one understands these impulsive tendencies of KCR that inflict untold hardship onto people. 

The frequent references to a “larger national role”

He first made a reference to a larger national role in the runup to the 2019 LS elections. He advocated a non-Congress, non-BJP Federal Front that will give more powers to the state and curb the powers of the centre. This idea obviously didn’t click for the 2019 elections. But he kept referring to this idea, saying that when he first formulated the idea of separate Telangana in 2001, the reaction was similar. He again made this reference in the runup to the GHMC elections. Every time these references have come up, rumours have also come up that this is KCR’s plan to anoint his son as the CM and move on to play a larger national role. And every time these rumours came up, the TRS has faced some electoral setback or the other! 

The aloofness and frequent trips to his farmhouse

One of the long-standing criticisms of KCR was that it is very difficult for even the MLAs and MPs to meet him. His frequent visits to the farmhouse were the butt of many jokes since 2015. However, with the resounding 2018 verdict, it looked like the people didn’t care for this criticism. But this aloofness and the visits increased ever since that victory. KCR hasn’t gone to the secretariat in many years citing Vaastu problems.

He ran the administration from his home and made even more frequent trips to his farmhouse. At the peak of the COVID crisis, he was literally incommunicado for 9 full days. This criticism has now garnered more ground than the pre-2018 days. The aloofness is seen as arrogance by many and the many electoral setbacks haven’t helped either! 

In conclusion

What people saw in KCR 1.0 is very different from what they are seeing in KCR 2.0. The increased focus on establishing family rule; the aloofness; the arrogance in responding to even genuine queries; the lack of any new significant schemes in the past 2 years; and the confused messaging have begun to show impact. What course correction is needed is obvious. Whether he will do it is not obvious! 

Not just a municipal election: Telangana’s political landscape is changing

 

The following article was written for Commune Mag. Pasting it here for reference:

With the dust settling in for the GHMC elections and polling numbers coming in, the true scale of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory is further baffling many analysts. The GHMC limits are split into 6 zones – and the BJP is the only party to have won at least 1 seat in each of the 6 zones. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) did not win a single seat in the Charminar zone. The TRS won 33 out of the 55 seats from just two zones – Kukatpally and Serlingampally; and remaining 22 are spread over the other 3 zones.

However, there is one more statistic that is very devastating for the TRS party. The GHMC area covers 24 MLA constituencies. The TRS did not win a single ward in a whopping 13 of these constituencies. In contrast, the BJP won at least 1 ward in 18 of these constituencies. This is a huge leap from its disastrous performance in both the 2009 and 2016 GHMC elections.

Source: Ee Nadu

Though the above graphic is in Telugu (sourced from Ee Nadu), it is easy to get an overview based on the colours and symbols of the party. The numbers represent the wards won by that party in each assembly constituency. There is yet another interesting statistic that needs to be observed.

Except for the Jubilee Hills constituency, the TRS did not win a single ward seat in any of the 10 constituencies that the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won wards in! Though the TRS and MIM have been telling that they are not in alliance, these numbers tell a very different story!

This loss for the TRS is largely due to the bungling of many local issues. Fresh in the memory of people is the tardy response of the state government to the unprecedented Hyderabad floods that struck the city recently. The Chief Minister did not even bother to visit the affected areas. A cash incentive of ₹10,000 was announced but the distribution was so tardy and riddled with so much controversy that nothing useful came out of the whole exercise. The general inaccessibility of many corporators (43 of sitting corporators lost in this elections), their continuing influence over land grabbing and corruption (even the Mayor was entangled in serious allegations of land grabbing) contributed a lot to this defeat.

In addition to these local factors, there was also widespread discussion on certain state level factors – such as the tightening grip of the family rule in Telangana; the shoddy response to the COVID testing right from the beginning of the crisis, and the general arrogance of the TRS leadership in dealing with questions and criticism.

The BJP was smart enough to deftly handle both the local and state level issues in this campaign. Even though they had only 10 days to decide on the candidates and strategies – the BJP’s aggressive campaign hit the right chords at many places. Whilst highlighting the local issues and potential solutions to them, the BJP also played well at highlighting the arrogance of the TRS leadership (primarily the family of K. Chandrasekhara Rao!). The entire state leadership was focused only on this election – and this is the first time they had multiple star campaigners because of which the party was able to cover larger area with greater impact.

The party of course benefitted from the experience of its national leadership too. With Shri Bhupender Yadav overseeing the election, it was apparent how serious the central leadership was taking this election. Campaigns by Amit Shah, J.P.Nadda, Yogi Adityanath, Smriti Irani, Tejasvi Surya, etc bolstered the cadre like never before.

The TRS didn’t back down a bit on this front – the entire state cabinet was involved in the campaigning. Nearly all the 100 MLAs of the TRS were also involved in the campaigning. KCR’s son KT Rama Rao was in charge of the whole exercise – and therefore this loss stings more than ever. Slowly and surely, the BJP has occupied the principal opposition space in Telangana now. It remains to be seen how the party will take this position forward.

By the way, there has been one more casualty because of this election. The state Congress President, Uttam Kumar Reddy, has finally resigned after the disastrous performance of the party. Within hours of him resigning, multiple groups within the party have begun lobbying for the post based on caste compositions. Until the Congress party comes out of this ridiculous groupism and age-old strategies, there is no hope left of revival of that party!

This is also the first time that the TRS has lost a position of power after the formation of the Telangana state in 2014. With TRS losing the public mandate in GHMC, the focus has now shifted towards electing the Mayor. The TRS needed 67 seats to win the Mayor seat on its own. They now have no option but to ally with the MIM to retain the Mayor seat in GHMC.