HYDERABAD, 20 July — Opposition parties in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh have started post-election negotiations to capture the posts of chairmen of district councils in the state.
District council elections were held earlier this week.
Two of them — the Congress party and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) — have begun negotiations for these posts in a couple of districts in the Telangana region where the results have thrown up an interesting scenario.
The TRS launched in April by K. Chandrasekhar Rao, a former deputy speaker of the assembly, is in a position to bargain with the Congress as it fought and won elections on the issue of formation of a separate state of Telangana in Karimnagar and Nizamabad districts on its own. It has asked the Congress to support the separate state demand if it wants its support in Warangal and Rangareddy districts.
The TRS has won 12 of the 50 district council seats in Warangal district, while the Congress has won 15 seats. The Congress needs TRS support to capture the council.
The ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has won the maximum number of 21 seats, while the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its ally, bagged two seats.
In Rangareddy district, the lone TRS member can tilt the balance in favor of the Congress, which won 15 out of total 33 seats. The TDP and the BJP have won 14 and two seats respectively, while the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), which had a pre-poll tie-up with the Congress, bagged one seat.
The Congress, which is dithering on the demand for a separate Telangana state, may find it difficult to give a commitment to the TRS over the issue before the elections for district council chairpersons are held July 23. The party’s central leadership is yet to take a decision on this demand.
Meanwhile, the TDP and the Congress are taking all precautions to keep their flock together. Since results in several districts have produced cliffhangers, both parties fear intense horse-trading from each other. The votes of the left parties, which had a tie-up with the Congress and independents in some districts, have become decisive.
The TDP, which has captured 10 districts on its own, has herded its 32 district council members to the party’s headquarters here to protect them from poaching.
The Congress has bagged 28 seats in the districts while the BJP and the TRS got two seats each. The most interesting scenario is in Vizianagram district where the TDP and the Congress have won 17 seats each. If a tie persists in elections to the post of district council chairman, the presiding officer will choose the winner by draw of lots.
Srikakulam, Guntur, Prakasam, Krishna, Kurnool and Adilabad are the only districts where the TDP got a clear majority. In four other districts, the margin of its victory was very thin. The Congress was victorious in eight districts.
Barring Khammam and Nalgonda, where it got a clear majority with the help of the left parties, the margin of its win in other districts ranges from one to four seats.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister and TDP President Chandrababu Naidu refused to accept the results of the elections as an anti-establishment wave.
He pointed out that TDP had got the maximum 514 out of the total 1,094 district council seats. On the other hand, the Congress had won 444 seats, the TRS 84, the left parties 24, the BJP 13 and independents 15, he added.
