TD too Not Ready to Treat Bypolls as Match Decider

Not hoping to win more than a couple of seats now, it is placing all bets on 2014 general election
by VV Balakrishna

Hyderabad: Seeing prospects of victory in not more than one or two constituencies, the  Telugu Desam too is not prepared to treat the coming byelections for one Lok Sabha and 18 Assembly seats as a sort of people's final verdict. Whatever be the outcome of the bypolls, it will not have any adverse impact on the main opposition party is the general thinking among party leaders.
"Ultimately, the 2014 general election will be important to the party," a senior leader said.  The party chief has already declared that the party's coffers are empty and it cannot compete with the YSR Congress Party in "distributing money to voters''.
However, the TDP is mainly banking on Congress' inefficiency, involvement of ministers in liquor syndicates and the corruption charges YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is facing. Some leaders are of the opinion that the division of Congress votes between YSRCP and Congress would be advantageous to the TDP in a majority of constituencies. "Kovur byelection was different and cannot be compared with the coming  bypolls in 19 constituencies," said another leader, stating that in Kovur the TDP candidate, along with the party cadre, joined the YSRCP. Yet, the TDP put up a spirited fight in Kovur. But in the case of the 18 constituencies going to polls in June or July,  the Congress legislators there joined the YSRCP and the division of Congress votes would help the TDP, a senior leader analysed.
Despite the brave talk, the party is not sure how many seats it will win in the byelections. According to insiders, the TDP has hopes of winning only two or three seats.  But they are more or less unanimous in their opinion that the main fight will be between the YSRCP and the TDP. The more aggressive the  Congress gets in its campaign against Jagan, it will only split YSRCP votes, thus benefiting the TDP. Some Telangana TDP MLAs are of the opinion that the Congress will be going to the election on the Samaikya Andhra plank which will boomerang on it. If the YSRCP wins a majority of the seats, the Samaikya Andhra argument gets defeated and the Congress high command will give green signal for division of the state, says a young MLA from Telangana. However, TDP, unlike Congress leaders such as Lagadapati Rajagopal and TG Venkatesh, may not play the Samaikya Andhra card in the byelections.


Naidu to Launch
Campaign Today

Express News Service
Hyderabad: Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu will start his party's byelection campaigning from Tirupati on Monday.
Naidu always started his election campaigns and major yatras from Tirupati. He will have the darshan of Lord Balaji at 5 am and begin his road-shows in the Tirupati Assembly constituency at 4 pm.