Cong wins hands down

Congress-led alliance bags 226 seats while TDP-BJP combine wins only 49 seats

In disconcerting signs for the BJP-led NDA combine at the Centre, the Congress on Tuesday swept back to power in Andhra Pradesh on its own after 10 years with a three-fourth majority, handing the Telugu Desam government a stinging defeat.

Besting the most optimistic predictions made by various exit polls, the Congress-led alliance bagged 226 seats in the 294-member Andhra Pradesh state Assembly.

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) also started off its maiden election impressively by winning 26 seats out of the 42 seats it contested. The TDP-BJP combine had to contend with a mere 49 seats.

The results were decisive not only in terms of the seats that the Congress won but also in terms of the margins that the Congress candidates notched up against their opponents.

The outgoing chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who governed the state like a CEO, drove to the Raj Bhavan in the afternoon and submitted the resignation of his council of ministers to the governor. BJP got a hammering and won just two seats as compared to the 12 it had won in the previous elections.

Interestingly, only eight of the 39 ministers in the state government managed to retain their seats, while Naidu himself won comfortably, reflective of the strong anti-incumbency wave in the state.

The Telugu Desam's defeat in the hustings was accentuated by the rout that the party faced in coastal Andhra Pradesh, the traditional stronghold of the party.

Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), the Congress leader who led the charge against Naidu as an opposition leader in the outgoing Assembly, is all set to take charge as the chief minister.

The Congress will elect its chief minister tomorrow at a meeting of the Legislature Party in Hyderabad.

Senior All-India Congress Committee members, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Shiv Raj Patil, are attending the meeting and will oversee the selection of the chief minister. The new chief minister is likely to be administered the oath of office by the governor on May 14.

The Congress wave was felt across all the three regions of the state and laid low Chandrababu Naidu's hopes of taking advantage of the possible polarisation of votes against the demand for a separate Telangana state, especially in coastal Andhra.

Industry's reaction to the Congress sweep in the state remained mute, but most of the industrialists were confident that the Congress government would not do anything drastic to overturn the reformist policies of the Naidu government in an effort to curry favour with the rural masses.

The new Congress government in the state has promised to provide free power to the agricultural sector and the constitution of an Agriculture Technology Mission.

In its attempt to keep the powerful farmers' lobby in the state, the Congress has also promised the one-time settlement of co-operative agricultural loans, cut interest on crop loans to six per cent.