Will Congress going it alone in AP help live down 2014 drubbing?

The Congress, though down and struggling in Andhra Pradesh, and trying to forget a bitter alliance experience with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in neighbouring Telangana State, has decided to fight the ensuing election battle in AP alone.

The Party was completely routed in the 2014 elections drawing a blank both in the 175-member Legislative Assembly and the 25 seats to the Lok Sabha. It was seen as the cause for the bifurcation and injustice to AP.

The decision not to align with the TDP, the party in power in the State, was reportedly taken by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, a day after his meeting with N Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister and TDP Chief in New Delhi.

“We will contest all the seats in AP-both Assembly & Lok Sabha on our own” said Oomen Chandy, AICC General Secretary and in- charge of AP Affairs as well as N Raghuveera Reddy, AP Pradesh Congress Committee Chief in Vijayawada.

The Party is hoping that Rahul Gandhi’s promise to accord Special Category Status to AP- a top election issue in 2019, entry of Priyanka Gandhi, reviving its own cadre and inviting all the leaders who left the Party would help in strengthening it. It will have to face the formidable TDP, the YSR Congress Party led by YS Jaganmohan Reddy, as well as the BJP.

At the national level, the Congress and TDP are part of the Mahagatbandhan of 23 parties that have united to oust the BJP led NDA alliance, now in AP they will be fighting each other.

Similarly, in the recent elections to the 119 member Telangana Assembly, the Congress invited the TDP to be part of the Praja Front along with the CPI and the TJS (Telangana Jana Samithi) led by M Kodandaram. The alliance flopped as K Chandrasekhar Rao’s Telangana Rastra Samithi swept to power winning 88. In a way the Telangana experience paved way for an easy decision to snap ties and take their own courses, leaders in both parties say.

Some political analysts believe that by going it alone, the Congress can at least cut into the YSR Congress. This indirectly can help the TDP. The UPA-2 under Manmohan Singh had several cabinet ministers like Megastar Chiranjeevi, Pallam Raju, Daggubati Purandheswari (now in BJP), KS Rao, JD Seelam, who are trying to find their feet back. Even the last Chief Minister of united AP, Kiran Kumar Reddy, who quit before the elections in 2014, has recently come back.

With around 100 days for the elections in the summer of 2019, can it shake off the burden of bifurcating AP and win the confidence of the electorate to emerge as a Party of reckoning?

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