BRS, Congress, BJP and AIMIM are all indulging in blame game.
NEW DELHI
In Telangana, the season of leveling wild allegations against political rivals appears to have peaked. There is hardly any day when a leader of either of the four key parties—BRS, Congress, BJP and AIMIM—does not blame the others of working in cohorts with the others.
With eye on preventing a division of Muslim votes, Telangana Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy has constantly been accusing AIMIM led by Asaduddin Salahuddin Owaisi of being a B-team of BJP tasked to split votes by engineering multi-cornered contests on key seats to split the votes and benefit Congress rivals.
He said the voters will teach a lesson to the AIMIM and the BJP. “The BJP is trying to mislead the people with tall promises like making an OBC the chief minister,” he said dismissing, in the same breath, the AIMIM allegation that the Congress has a no real love for OBCs. He said the BJP is not going to get more than 2% of voter share and its candidates’ security deposit will be forfeited in over 100 of the total 119 Assembly seats.
Reddy’s assertions on alleged backdoor tie-ups among Congress rivals was echoed even by the national party president. Mallikarjun Kharge, in a recent election meet in the state, said that the ruling BRS, AIMIM and the BJP have formed a secret grouping to spoil the Congress’ chances. Kharge said the BJP is not even in the contest on a majority of seats yet it is trying to help BRS-AIMIM to defeat Congress by fielding candidates across the state.
AIMIM chief Owaisi, in turn, has alleged that voters of Telangana cannot afford to have Congress or BJP come to power. According to the AIMIM chief, both the Congress and the BJP have hatched a conspiracy to help the RSS to expand in Telangana by splitting minority votes in about a dozen seats including Amberpet, Adilabad, Goshamahal, Khairatabad, Nirmal, Musheerabad, Karimnagar, Mudhole, Korutla, Huzurabad and Nizamabad Urban. On facing heat from the Congress for contesting in just nine Assembly constituencies to benefit the BJP, Owaisi said they should make up their mind whether they are upset or happy with my decision to contest a limited number of seats. “Rahul says we take money and contest. Priyanka says we are not contesting enough number of seats.
After tasting electoral success in Karnataka, the Congress is hoping to wrest power from the BRS and form the government in Telangana. The party believes the guarantees announced for voters would tilt the balance in its favour in the November 30 election.
PCC chief Reddy does not reveal his cards on who could be the party’s CM, in case it storm to power. “The party will decide this question. Each legislator is a contender to become the next CM,” Reddy said recently.
During an election rally, Union Home Minister Amit Shah targeted CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, as number one in corruption. He also accused the BRS, the Congress and AIMIM sharing values like promoting their first families. State BJP chief G. Kishan Reddy was serving in the Union Cabinet till three months.
However, BRS government’s finance minister T. Harish Rao responded to Shah’s remarks by claiming that voters would be wasting their vote if they back the saffron party. BJP’s leaders coming from Delhi have no idea about local issues and they are simply reading scripts written by local leaders.
The ruling party is looking for a third term for KCR in the 30 November election whose result will be declared on 3 December.
The 3.17 crore voters in the state will decide the fate of 2,290 candidates in the state. In 2018, the BRS got 88 seats with 46.9 vote share as against Congress’ 19 seats with 28.4 per cent vote share. The AIMIM got seven seats, the TDP got, BJP won one and others got one.