Development focus does it for YSR in Andhra

Andhra Pradesh once again emerged as the biggest contributor to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) tally with the ruling Congress set to bag over 30 of the 42 Parliamentary seats, including trends.

In fact the Congress, which went alone this time as against an alliance with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the CPI and the CPI(M) in 2004, is expected to secure four seats more than its 2004 tally of 29.

The opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which formed a “Maha Kootami” (grand alliance) with the TRS, the CPI and the CPI(M), was ahead in six Lok Sabha seats, one more than in the previous general elections.

Among the TDP’s alliance partners, the TRS won two seats. It had won five in 2004.

The two Left parties, which bagged one Lok Sabha seat each in 2004, drew a blank this time.

The Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), floated by actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi, did not get a single seat on its electoral debut. The BJP also drew a blank, while the All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen party bagged one seat.

The absence of an anti-incumbency mood, the continuous good monsoons and the sustained focus of the Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy on welfare schemes seem to have delivered the goods for the Congress this time.

On the other hand, internal contradictions and a lack of co-ordination among the cadres of the alliance partners contributed to the drubbing of Maha Kootami.

The transfer of votes from one ally to the other did not take place at the grassroots level in many constituencies.

The four-party alliance also did not have a common manifesto or agenda, except for defeating the Congress.

For instance, the CPI(M) maintained that it was committed to an integrated Andhra Pradesh, while the other three parties promised separate statehood to the Telangana region.

The differences between the four parties are also evident from the fact that, in about a dozen Assembly and two Lok Sabha constituencies, the allies were locked in “friendly contests” due to the failure of their seat-sharing agreement.

This apart, the entry of the PRP into the electoral fray has changed the political scenario in the state, which witnessed a triangular contest for the first time in the past 25 years.

The PRP was expected to cut into the vote bank of both the TDP and the Congress. However, it now seems that the fledgling party had succeeded more in splitting anti-Congress votes.

Though it raised high expectations in the beginning, the PRP lost momentum following widespread resentment over selection of candidates and a string of resignations by senior leaders just before the polls.

In the absence of any major national or regional issues, all parties in the fray announced a string of sops to woo the electorate. Of these, the TDP’s cash transfer scheme and offer of television sets to the poor were expected to swing the electorate in favour of Maha Kootami.

However, the two populist schemes seem to have not caught the imagination of voters for two reasons.

First, they were announced just before the elections and the TDP had little time to take them to the door-steps of the people. The other reason was party president N Chandrababu Naidu himself.

During his nine-year stint as chief minister of the state, Naidu had done away with various populist schemes, including the TDP’s pet Rs 2-a-kg-rice scheme. So, when he announced the two sops just before the polls, many did not believe that he would actually implement them.