- Trust me, the coming months will be crucial for not only the fortunes of the political parties who wish to stay relevant in the hope of assuming/resuming/continuing power but also for citizens eagerly anticipating what is in store for them vis-à-vis relief as well as further improvements in the living standards. Mind you, every political party will be coming out with manifestos promising surprising and pleasant experiences for the electorate if voted to power. We Indians are quite used to this paraphernalia as one or the other form of elections is underway throughout the year. Of course, the mother of all elections – the Lok Sabha polls – is due early next year and the two national parties have already commenced their respective preparations towards this in earnest.
PC: ET Online
- We know how the two national political parties, viz. the Grand Old Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party have formed the UPA and the NDA, respectively. Several regional and small political parties are part of these two blocs which will be facing off in the parliamentary elections. Apart from the core Hindi belt comprising crucial states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar, it is also interesting to know how the southern states are positioned here. As the INDIA bloc begins its Delhi meeting, it may be hoping to bet big on 131 Lok Sabha seats in five southern states and two Union Territories. This is where it gets interesting to see how the newly minted INDIA bloc goes about accommodating like-minded parties to tame the BJP.
- Take for instance Kerala, while it hammers out LS strategy with CPM in Delhi, Congress-led state opposition UDF has accused the governing party CPM-led LDF of graft. The animosity between workers of the two alliances is only growing. Then there’s the outlier state Andhra Pradesh, the only one where neither governing party YSRCP nor opposition TDP are at present with NDA, but for both of whom Congress has been archrival. Andhra’s probe agency jailing ex-CM Chandrababu Naidu shows CM Jagan Reddy’s nervousness. Yes, Naidu’s TDP won 3 LS seats in 2019, but had a credible 40% vote share, compared to YSRCP’s 50%, which won 22 of the state’s 25 LS seats. Much is at stake for Reddy since Andhra’s assembly election is held simultaneously with the LS polls.
PC: ET Bureau
- In Telangana, KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi, again unaligned to either bloc, won big in 2019 – 10 of the state’s 17 seats with a 42% vote share. While Congress, following its Karnataka win, hopes to make the due-soon assembly election in Telangana a mock drill for its LS foray, it’s not certain that voting patterns for the assembly polls will be mirrored in LS elections. Also complicating the equation is the fact that CPM and Owaisi’s AIMIM are KCR’s allies at the state level. Notably, the INDIA bloc has under its belt India’s second and third largest states by GSDP in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. BJP will make an issue of the Sanatan Dharma controversy big time. Karnataka will see a direct fight between Congress and BJP. There’s no easy contest for any part of the South.
