The high-decibel campaigning for elections to 129 urban local bodies (ULBs) with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leaders having high stakes particularly after party president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s indication of taking the results to measure their “performance” came to an end on Monday evening.
However, the parties’ efforts to influence and attract the electorate are still on in their own ways till the polling the is completed.
As the elections are being held across the State, the responsibility of campaigning was primarily shouldered by the ministers, MLAs, MLCs and MPs for the ruling party, while it was the local leaders who took the responsibility for the Opposition parties Congress, BJP and others. Working president of TRS K.T. Rama Rao supervised the campaigning personally till the penultimate day before leaving for Davos.
For Congress, Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, working president A. Revanth Reddy and Legislature Party Leader M. Bhatti Vikramarka led the campaigning while other bigwigs limited themselves to their respective strongholds.
Creating a buzz
State unit president K. Laxman led the BJP’s electioneering although several leaders from the Centre and other States too chipped in. The friendly party of ruling TRS, AIMIM, which has high stakes in about a dozen ULBs, too has succeeded in creating a buzz in its distinct way.
The BJP tried to rake up the issue of TRS friendship with MIM. Some BJP leaders went to the extent of charging that TRS had already conceded mayoral post to the MIM in at least two corporations in North Telangana.
Rebel issue
The ruling TRS has the highest problem of rebels although the party leadership has gone all out to make them withdraw from the contest. However, the opposition parties have tried to utilise the opportunity to their advantage either by supporting the ruling party rebels wherever they have no or weak candidates or by ‘adopting’ them as their candidates.
In spite of the ministers and other elected representatives immersed in electioneering for the last 10 days, TRS working president, who is away at Davos attending the World Economic Forum summit, has asked the party ranks to be agile for the next 36 hours to ensure the voters supported the party amply.
Both the Congress and BJP are hopeful that they would make inroads into TRS strongholds banking on the anti-incumbency factor and also the support they secured in Lok Sabha elections in 2019 after receiving a drubbing in the Assembly elections held a few months before.
