Bengaluru: Days after suffering yet another debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress received a fresh shock as 12 of its 18 Telangana MLAs were accepted as members of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) by the Speaker.
The mass defection has cost the party its leader of opposition position in the second Telangana assembly, formed late last year, but the Congress says it will use the crisis to recalibrate.
According to a source in the party, the Telangana Congress is ready to project and promote “second-rung leaders who have been waiting in the wings to get the right opportunity to work on the frontline”.
Meanwhile, All India Congress Committee (AICC) spokesperson Dr Sravan Dasoju told ThePrint that the defections were “an act of desperation” by TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (also known as KCR).
“This move shows the predatory tendency of KCR… Also, he does not want to face any questions or opposition in the assembly, and that is why he has done this,” he added.
“KCR has some kind of insecurity despite winning the number of seats he has. He is worried about an internal coup and wants to keep MLAs on his side so that the TRS strength in the assembly is not reduced,” Dasoju added. “These MLAs going will not matter and we will bounce back.”
From 19 to six
Telangana, carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, held its second assembly election in late 2018. KCR won the election to the 119-seat assembly with a massive mandate, scoring 88 seats, 25 more than its 2014 tally.
The Congress came a distant second with 19 seats, down two seats over 2014, but managed to secure the leader of opposition position, which requires a party to have at least 10 per cent of the seats.
On Wednesday, Telangana state unit chief Uttam Kumar Reddy tendered his resignation from the assembly after being elected to the Lok Sabha in the recent election. As a result, the strength of the Congress is down to six.
The 12 MLAs who quit the Congress, including former home minister Sabitha Indra Reddy, managed to beat the anti-defection law as they represented two-thirds of the party’s assembly strength.
TRS leader Abid Rasool Khan, who recently shifted to the KCR camp after spending 30 years in the Congress, said this was the beginning of the end for the party.
Citing the series of defeats the Congress has faced, Khan said the party was falling apart in Telangana, as in other states, and lack of leadership was the culprit. The Congress is on its way out and the BJP has found its footing in this space, he added.
“Only those who have money power matter (in the Congress). This has eroded the confidence of the party cadre,” he said. “The second reason is the three-tier reporting structure in the Congress, where, despite having state party presidents, general secretaries are appointed. Nothing moves till the general secretary agrees to it. This is what I told Mr Rahul Gandhi… that it reflects the party does not trust its state leadership.”
Decimated in the house, the Telangana Congress says it is banking on public gratitude towards the party for statehood to dodge complete political oblivion.
“Though we could not bag a good number of seats, we know people are indebted to Sonia Gandhiji and the Congress for the formation of our state, and they will never leave us high and dry,” Dasoju said.
Political analyst Jinka Nagaraj agreed, saying the Congress may be in decline but still enjoyed public support on the ground.
“Overall, these defections don’t affect the Congress. But it is a wake-up call. Earlier, the Congress had just one enemy, that is the TRS. But now they have a second enemy, the BJP,” he added. “So, the party will try its best to fight back and reclaim their lost space.”
While the BJP won just one seat in the 2018 assembly election, it scored four of the state’s 17 Lok Sabha seats this year — an unprecedented feat for a party not known to have much of a presence in south India.
Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), with seven seats, will now be the second biggest party in the Telangana assembly.
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