Hyderabad: A majority of the ministers and senior TRS leaders on Wednesday strongly felt that it was not desirable to opt for early Assembly polls in December as wished by party chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao going by the sentiment that early polls never favoured ruling parties.
Mr Rao on Wednesday convened an emergency meeting at Pragathi Bhavan to discuss early polls.
However, the general mood in the meeting was to go for polls as originally scheduled in April/May 2019. The CM’s view, incidentally, was that there was a “feel good factor” among people towards the TRS government and the party should cash in on this by going for early Assembly polls in Decmeber.
Ministers cited instances of Atal Behari Vajpayee and N. Chandrababu Naidu biting the dust in 2004 in their bid to cash in on the “feel good factor”. They stressed that Vajpayee government’s ‘India Shining campaign’ and N. Chandrababu Naidu’s “Swarnaandhrapradesh” in 2004 planned on “feel good factor” concept had backfired.
TRS party sources told the CM that TRS was bound to win the next elections and in these circumstances questioned the need for going against the ‘sentiment’ and ‘taking unnecessary risks’ by going for early polls, which never favoured ruling parties.
Mr Rao is also learnt to have agreed to the opinions expressed by ministers and senior leaders and told them that he never talked about early polls. He only meant that elections if held any time before the six-month remainder of the tenure of the Assembly would not be termed as early polls and that the Election Commission had the power to hold elections for states which had just six-month tenure left.
TRS party sources said Mr Rao pitched for early polls in December as the state received good rainfall this month, all projects were brimming with water which would result in bumper kharif production, Mission Bhagiratha to provide tap water to all households would become operational by Dasara in October and Rythu Bandhu second instalment distribution of '4,000 per acre to over 58 lakh farmers was scheduled in November. All these factors would contribute to the “feel good factor” towards TRS and help to retain power.
The ministers agreed that there was a feel-good-factor for TRS due to the implementation of 45 types of welfare schemes by spending over Rs 40,000 crore per year and this would definitely help the TRS retain power in the next elections. But their only concern was about 'sentiment' which always worked against the ruling party going for early polls.
It was decided to hold the meeting of party's the Legislature and Parliamentary Party wings at Telangana Bhavan on August 24 to discuss this issue at large.
It was also decided that on September 2, the TRS would hold ‘Pragati Nivedana Sabha’, a massive public meeting at Kongara Kalan village on the outskirts of the city. As many as 25 lakh party workers and people are expected to attend the public meeting where the TRS leadership is expected to present a progress report on its achievements in the past four years.
Mr Rao called on party workers to begin preparing for the public meeting, to be held in a sprawling venue spread over 1,600 acres at Kongara Kalan near the Outer Ring Road.
