The Telangana Assembly elections will be held on November 30 with results being announced on December 3. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday, October 9, announced the polling schedule for the state along with that of Rajasthan, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh. In Telangana, a total of 3.17 crore people are registered as voters. With this, the Model Code of Conduct will also come into effect until the date of polling. Last week, ECI officials visited the state to assess the poll preparedness.
The ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), will be gearing up to win the election for a third time. In September 2018, KCR dissolved the state Assembly six months before its term ended, leading to the state elections in December of the same year. Otherwise, Telangana, like Andhra Pradesh, would have gone to polls in 2019 April-May along with the general elections.
It paid off well, as the ruling BRS won the Assembly elections with a thumping majority, bagging 88 out of 119 Assembly seats. The Congress, which allied with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and other organisations, managed to win only 19 and two seats each. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won five seats in an alliance with the TDP in the 2014 state elections, retained only one seat, or the Goshamahal seat in 2018. The All Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majils-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) retained the seven seats in Hyderabad, primarily in the old city area, and has been winning since 2009.
In August this year, KCR announced 115 names for 119 Assembly seats. Of that, he will be contesting from two - Gajwel and Kamareddy. The main opposition Congress and other parties such as AIMIM and BJP, have not yet announced their candidates or first list. Both are expected to do so in the next week. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by ex-IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar in the state, announced its first list of candidates last week. Praveen will be contesting from the Sirpur constituency, which is currently represented by BRS MLA Koneru Konappa.
In the upcoming polls, the BRS will be facing a supposedly resurgent Congress, which is riding on a high following the resounding victory in Karnataka. However, KCR’s BRS is counting on its welfare schemes like Shadi Mubarak (financial assistance for unmarried Muslim women’s families), Kalyana Lakshmi (financial assistance for unmarried SC/ST women’s families), Rythu Bandhu (financial assistance for land-owning farmers) and Dalit Bandhu (Rs 10 lakh financial assistance for SC families) to come back to power again.
While political analysts have given the BRS an edge so far, it is to be seen if the Congress will be able to take on the BRS, as KCR still has no major political rival. The BJP, which had been posturing itself as the main opposition, so far has still not shown any signs of overtaking the Congress. Unhappy political defectors have only been moving between the BRS and Congress, ever since KCR announced his first list.
Moreover, a major factor in KCR’s victory last time, and may be key in him winning again, is the AIMIM’s support. It is believed that Muslims, who account for about 12.5% of the total vote share, backed the BRS due to Owaisi’s appeal in the 2018 election to vote for the BRS. KCR himself on August 21, while announcing the first list, said that both parties are on “friendly terms.”