Telangana polls in 54 days, says Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor has urged voters in Telangana to undo their "mistake" of choosing K Chandrashekar Rao as the Chief Minister in 2014, adding that the state will go to polls in the next 54 days.

The assurance from the Congress party leader comes less than a month after the country's Chief Election Commissioner, OP Rawat, in an interview with ANI, said that Assembly elections in Telangana might not be necessarily held along with Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Mizoram, which are stated to go to polls at the end of this year.

"As the election in the state is coming in 54 days, the voters should remember that a vote for the TRS is a vote for the BJP; that is essentially the message that is coming across," Tharoor said, while addressing the media here on Tuesday.

Tharoor added that both India and Telangana paid a " terrible price" by backing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) at the state level, respectively.

"We are heading towards elections in Telangana in November and the rest of India no later than April. Mistakes are normal in a democracy, but the great strength in democracy is self-correcting. The voters, the public, can undo their mistakes the next time they come to vote," said the senior leader.

The Telangana State Assembly was dissolved premature by K Chandrashekar Rao, who called for advancement of polls in the state.