In Andhra, it's blame game now

TDP, TRS and Left feel cheated by each other

The Telugu Desam Party which now stands rejected for the second consecutive election believes that it was done in by its allies of Grand Alliance.

The TDP managed to win six Lok Sabha seats and 93 seats in Assembly. It was confident that its support to a separate Telangana state and stitching up of an alliance with Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the two Left parties would get it votes from the region. It also hoped its free colour TV and cash transfer scheme for the poor would bring it a flood of votes. Both these calculations went wrong.

Interestingly, TDP’s performance was far better in Telangana than that of TRS which shows that the party had lost its credibility in the people of the region.
Out of the 93 Assembly seats TDP won, 39 were in Telangana while two of the six LS seats were from the region. TRS on the other hand won 10 Assembly and two LS seats. TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu believes that TRS proved to be TDP’s undoing. This sentiment is reciprocated by TRS which believes that it was ‘cheated’ both by the TDP and the Left parties as the ‘vote transfer’ from the committed cadres of those parties did not take place.

The Left in turn blames the TRS for its ‘blackmailing’ tactics, ‘negative’ politics and ‘double standards’ which vitiated the political atmosphere and turned the voters against them. The Left won five Assembly seats and drew a blank in Lok Sabha.

Humble reaction

The most humble reaction to defeat came from Chiranjeevi of Praja Rajyam Party. PRP got a drubbing from the people, winning 18 Assembly seats and zero Lok Sabha seats.
He said the people’s preference for Congress in Lok Sabha reflected their desire for a stable and secular government.
His party’s disastrous showing was due to the inability of his party and cadres to take the message of social justice to the people.
“It is only a beginning not the end,” he said and that he was grateful to the people for giving him the 18 seats in the Assembly. He urged his cadres not to get disheartened. “The glass is half-full, not half-empty,” he said.
DH News Service