The election results are out and many parties have now been trying to figure out the causes for their losses. First among the list happens to be the Telugu Desam Party and despite joining hands with parties like Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the Communists, they were better off getting good scores as a single party. After having gone through the process, many analysts have now mentioned that the major cause for TDP to lose ground this time has been due to the ‘caste’ tag that they developed.
Looking at Mahakootami, both Raghavulu and Narayana who came from the communist camp happen to be Kammas. Then the canvassing part was taken care of extensively by the Nandamuri family and with most of the contestants hailing from the same community got a label of sorts for the TDP that they have become a complete ‘Kamma’ favoring party and this has turned out to be their biggest defect. Many voters say that they were miffed with this sort of approach by Chandrababu Naidu and whether he meant it or not, the composition looked quite obvious that there was a lot of Kamma dose in it. This is believed to have developed an anti-Kamma feeling and the votes went against the party.
There are also reports that this is also one key reason even for the Praja Rajyam Party which turned out to be a complete Kapu dominated party.
It is now being said that if Chandrababu is looking to regain power in 2014, then work has to start from his end now onwards. He has to work on proving to people that his is not a Kamma oriented party and also given the dominance of the Congress and the success of their initiatives, there must be a concrete agenda for him unlike the stale issues like Telangana etc. All this apart, it could well be that if Chiranjeevi is looking at really making a career as a politician, then he could well be getting his act together and five years is good enough for him to make his presence felt if he works constructively. As it is, the TDP has lost out on many seats since most of its senior leaders left the party and tried their hand with other parties so it is about time that Babu looks at bringing up a uniform caste orientation in the party cadres and chalks up a really worthy plan if he is looking to get the chair of the Chief Minister. For now, the forte of Y S Rajasekhar Reddy looks unshakeable so this will be tough challenge for the Kamma projected TDP.
(Usha Choudary can be reached at [email protected])
