The r uling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Congress here have already begun preparations for mid-term polls.
While the pradesh Congress committee president M Mallikarjun sees a strong anti-TDP wave sweeping the state and is confident of bagging all the 42 Lok Sabha seats from Andhra Pradesh, United Front (UF) convenor and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, is more modest in aiming at 30 seats for the Front.
In the dissolved Lok Sabha, the Front had 19 members (16 TDP, 2 CPI and one CPM), the Congress had 22 members and the Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen the remaining one from the state.
Claims and counter-claims apart, the 1998 Lok Sabha elections in the state will see a serious fight between the TDP and the Congress. The TDPs trump card is Chandrababu Naidu, a charismatic leader and a solid strategist.
An important feature of the elections this time is that the NTR-TDP, led by N T Rama Raos widow, Lakshmi Parvathi, has all but disappeared from the scene. In the 1996 Lok Sabha poll, NTR-TDP had polled 10.6 per cent of the valid votes, the largest percentage after TDP ( 32.5%) and Congress (39.6%). It is presumed that the NTR-TDP votes were essentially the TDP votes which got divided in the wake of the split in the party. For, the 1996 Lok Sabha poll was a tussle between Chandrababu Naidu and Lakshmi Parvathi with both trying to prove that he/she was the real successor of NT Rama Rao with the Congress remaining complacent, confident that the split would work to its advantage. The situation has radically changed since then.
The Congress enters the fray with a dozen stalwarts like K Vijayabhaskara Reddy, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Rayapati Sambasiva Rao and P Upendra. These are tested leaders who can not only win their own seats but also influence the voting pattern in their neighbouring constituencies. This advantage gives the Congress 8 to 10 seats without much effort.
The TDP, on its part, has to rely solely on the charisma of its leader, Naidu. But Naidu is no more the man he was in 1996. His earlier image of a rank manipulator who collected and spent money to gain political advantage has been wiped out. Now, he is seen as a hard working Chief Minister with a vision for the future and one who is sincerely interested in the development of the state.
More importantly, no Chief Minister so far has toured the state as extensively and frequently as Naidu has done in the past two years. Whether it was his Janmabhoomi programme or government at peoples doorsteps programme or a natural calamity, he was among the first to be on the spot even in the remotest village. Congress leaders like N Janardhan Reddy and YS Rajasekhara Reddy have the same kind of charisma but none of them have been able to project the kind of vision that Naidu alone has done.
The Congress is mostly banking on the anti-establishment wave. The cut in the quota of subsidised rice, increase in subsidised rice price from Rs 2 a kilo to Rs 3.50 a kilo, increase in power tariff and erratic power supply to the farm sector and more recently the road-widening programme are all seen as issues that had angered the people.
But the fact remains that barring regulated power supply to the farm sector, none of the other factors have snowballed into major issues. The farmers want uninterrupted power supply for a minimum of nine hours which the government has not been able to provide.
However, what might work for the Congress is that its leaders have put up a show of unity to fight the TDP. But the TDP over the years has developed and perfected a central campaign machinery which can turn over in thousands video and audio cassettes for campaigning.
Being the party in power, the TDP also has the required funds which the Congress will find difficult to match. But the fact remains that Congress candidates traditionally are drawn from the rich and feudal classes with both money and muscle power.
At least 80 per cent of the Congress candidates belong to this category.
In the past elections, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have been allies of the TDP and will continue to be so in this election.
But lately, there has been a split in the CPM and this may cost the party the lone seat it had from the state in the just dissolved Lok Sabha. CPI has also not nurtured its two constituencies and may face difficulty this time.
The BJP is trying to make a definite dent in the TDP and the Congress vote bank. It has on its side cine star Vijayashanti who is enthusiastic towards campaigning this time.
In 1996, the BJP did not win a single seat. This time it has as its ally the NTR-TDP. It has strong followings in Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Hanmakonda constituencies.
