Naidu may call early polls

A politburo meeting of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) held discussions on the Naxalite violence and the progress of the government's welfare schemes today, but also deepened speculation that Assembly elections could be ordered ahead of schedule to give Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu the advantage of a sympathy wave for him that is sweeping Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu had mooted the idea of early elections as far back as July when he addressed a meeting of party MPs in New Delhi and asked them to get ready for an early general election.

However, he found himself going slow on that decision, given the miasma of problems that the TDP got mired in: farmers' indebtedness leading to suicides, the unavoidability of raising state taxes and hiking electricity rates, the involvement of a former minister Krishna Yadav in the fake stamp paper scam that led the Congress to tar the whole TDP government with the corruption brush.

Virtually, the entire duration of the Assembly session saw walkouts, demonstrations and dharnas by the Opposition.

Today's politburo meeting was the first held after the attack on the chief minister. Following intelligence reports, information and consultations with TDP leaders the chief minister appeared to have decided that rather than wait for the Assembly elections till October 2004, which will only worsen the problem of drought, power shortage and other administrative difficulties, it might be better to hold elections right away.

Although the Congress is consolidating its strength in the state, Naidu believes the Opposition is at a greater disadvantage today than it will ever be. Out of 91 Congress MLAs, 47 are from the Telengana region, which is witnessing a movement for a separate state.

These Congress MLAs would like the central party leadership to give some kind of assurance to the electorate from the region that if the Congress comes to power, it will support a separate Telengana state.

However, the chances are supporting this demand will not find favour among Congress supporters in coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema and could drive them to the TDP. Because of this, there is a feeling in the Congress that the party is not yet ready for elections and should not rock the boat. If Naidu calls an election immediately, the Congress stronghold will be stormed.

Even while he was convalescing after the attack on him. Naidu had held extensive consultations with officials to monitor the progress on welfare schemes.

He directed officials to complete distribution of 1 million ration cards for the poor by the end of the month, complete construction of 650,000 houses under the weaker sections housing programme by end February, distribution of 200,000 bi-cycles for girl students by November 10 and grounding of works under micro-irrigation programme benefiting farmers by this month-end.

The chief minister has been closely monitoring the status of a package of sops unveiled by him in May aimed at benefiting farmers and weaker sections. Some indication on this might be available in few weeks because Naidu cannot afford to spend too much time making up his mind and lose the gains of the sympathy wave.