Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has left the decision on going for early polls to the legislative Assembly to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The CM had met the PM during his recent visit to Delhi and discussed early polls to the Telangana Assembly. According to top sources, Mr Modi told Mr Rao “Take the decision on going for early polls to the Assembly at your own risk, we cannot say when the Election Commission will hold the elections”.
Sources said that the the CM had expected an assurance from Mr Modi to hold Assembly elections according to what he had in mind. Nevertheless indications are that he will take a calculated gamble on early elections. According to the schedule, TS Assembly elections will be held between April and May 2019. But the CM wanted to go for early elections along with four other states in December 2018. And for this to be plausible, the state government has to dissolve the Assembly in September.
Because, unless the assembly is vacant, the EC will not move forward and take a call on holding elections in December along with four other states. Once the Assembly is dissolved, it is for the EC to decide when elections should be held. If the EC does not decide to hold TS Assembly elections in December, Mr Chandrasekhar Rao’s entire game plan fails.
And now that Mr Modi has reportedly told him that he cannot make assurances since the EC was an independent body, it puts the CM in a pickle. What he hoped for was that the Centre would influence the EC. Which was why, Mr Rao had hoped for an assurance from Mr Modi. But barring on the election issue, Mr Modi assured that he would clear other pending issues.
Accordingly, the Central government has issued a notification on the Zonal system as requested by the CM. But despite the lack of assurance from PM Modi, the CM seems to be going ahead with early polls. His actions like large scale transfers of IAS and IPS officers and the moves to announce the first list of candidates in September apart from the huge public meeting on September 2 in the name of Pragathi Nivedana Sabha to inform the public about the achievements of the TRS government in the last four years are signs that that he is preparing for early polls.
