Telangana Elections 2023: Will KCR’s risky bet of tickets to nearly all his sitting MLAs pay off?

Telangana Elections 2023: KCR is faced with twin challenges as he looks to retain the CM chair. (Source: File)

A young woman helming a dairy unit based out of Bellampalli assembly segment under Telangana’s Mancheriyal district attempted suicide in June this year right in front of the BRS office in Delhi, accusing the party’s Bellampalli lawmaker Durgam Chinnaiah of sexual harassment. In a suicide note she also alleged that the Telangana police refused to accept her complaint against her high-profile harasser. The victim also moved the National Commission for Women (NCW) seeking relief.

In a similar case, Tadikonda Rajaiah, a sitting MLA from Station Ghanpur and former Deputy Chief Minister, faced allegations of sexual harassment
involving a 30-year old woman sarpanch of his own party. Even in this case too, the victim’s pleas for action against the MLA weren't given the seriousness it deserved.

But fearing backlash from the voters, KCR has denied Rajaiah the party ticket. But he was rewarded with a relatively more lucrative post – chairman of the Rythu Bandhu Samithi, a state-owned corporation.

Initiating disciplinary action against Chinnaiah was apparently not in KCR’s scheme of things. Instead, the charges of sexual harassment failed to stop Chinnaiah from securing the party ticket for the third time for Bellampalli since 2014.

BRS Grapples With Multiple Challenges

The episodes of Durgam Chinnaiah and Tadikonda Rajaiah suggest the TRS/BRS is fast losing its foundational character as a party born out of the statehood movement, which stood for a noble cause. Massive defections from other parties have further led to evaporation of the core values of the party. Turncoats occupying priced positions in the government at the blessings of the party’s patriarch have demoralised the hardcore loyalists.

KCR has aimed to establish a direct contact with people through his welfare programmes, forcing  ministers, lawmakers and party leaders to remain spectators in the selection of beneficiaries and implementation of programmes. So, the onus was obviously placed on KCR himself to address the voter fatigue triggered by his style of governance, marked by inaccessibility, unilateral functioning and reliance on bureaucrats.

KCR is faced with twin challenges; dousing the flames of anti-incumbency against his own performance as a Chief Minister for two terms and his family rule, including his failure to realise a host of promises on one hand; and containing the tide of resentment against his party MLAs on the other.

Risky Bet On Sitting MLAs

The BRS leader, known for his risk appetite (recall how he called snap polls in 2018), is apparently averse to venturing into changing sitting MLAs fearing it might invite intra-party troubles before the elections. Therefore, KCR dropped only four sitting MLAs while releasing a list of candidates for 115 out of 119 segments in one go.

Retaining incumbents had paid KCR rich electoral dividends in 2018. This time the ride is not as smooth. He faces a resurgent Congress after the Karnataka elections. In spite of KCR riding to power with an overwhelming number of 88 seats in 2018, he lured at least 11 Congress MLAs and two TDP lawmakers into his party. Now the BRS chief is in a bind over accommodating all the defectors at the expense of party loyalists.

The ruling party’s MLAs are portrayed by rival parties as vassals and KCR as a monarch, implying feudal rule, something that Telangana has waged a long struggle against. The emergence of MLAs as leaders with absolute powers in their home turf has ruled out the prospects of the next generation of leadership emerging in the party. The trend almost closes out the chances of KCR entertaining any thought of infusing fresh blood in the party in the near future.

Even KCR’s son KT Rama Rao (KTR), who is contesting from Siricilla for the fourth time, is facing a tough fight against his Congress rival KK Mahendar Reddy. Reddy, who was a trusted follower of KCR during the statehood movement, defected to the Congress after KCR zeroed in on the Siricilla seat in 2009 for his US returnee son.

Will KCR pull off a hat-trick as a one-man army when a contingent of his party became more a liability than an asset? The polling on November 30 will only unravel this puzzle.

Gali Nagaraja is a senior journalist, formerly associated with The Hindu, The Times of India, and Hindustan Times for over three decades. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.