The Election Commission of India’s (ECI) announcement regarding the poll dates has caught political parties by surprise in Andhra Pradesh. The assembly and Lok Sabha elections will be held in AP along with Telangana in first phase, on April 11. With just a month for the polls, major political parties will have to rework their poll strategy. It was anticipated by most parties that the elections would be held in April-end and the calendar was planned for almost a year now keeping this in mind.
Actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party will be contesting elections for the first time. The party’s calculations were that elections will be held after April last week until they were proven wrong on Sunday. The party workers are involved in making their fifth foundation day, to be held on Rajahmundry on March 14, a success and this has the leaders tied up. Pawan Kalyan and his team are yet to finalise their alliance with CPI and CPM, which will leave them with little time for seat-sharing process, if they decide to contest together.
The party claims to have some clarity regarding only 50 per cent of the candidates for assembly polls. Since the party is also contesting parliament elections, that exercise is also pending. The party founder himself is yet to decide from where to contest out of the four choices for him, three from coastal Andhra and one from Rayalaseema region. With the last date for nomination being March 25, the party also has to hurry up with their Telangana plans. The party wants to field candidates for limited seats in the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana.
The ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) seems to be slightly better prepared than the rest at booth-level. The party sure has problems of its own as holding elections earlier than expected also means lesser time to counter anti-incumbency.
The biggest challenge in front of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his men is to defend allegations made against the party in the recent past like data theft.
A fresh video of note-for-vote scam, a case in which TDP allegedly tried to buy MLA’s for MLC elections in 2015, has also surfaced in the last few days. With elections around the corner, the party may have to work doubly hard to erase it from the public memory.
The selection of candidates for Lok Sabha polls is one area where the party is still unprepared, according to sources. The party is yet to decide the right candidates for most of the 25 Lok Sabha constituencies. It is learnt that internal politics is delaying the selection process in some assembly seats as a number of TDP leaders, who shifted from YSRCP, have to be accommodated and their demands have to be taken care of. With less time available, the situation may turn chaotic.
The main opposition, YSR Congress Party’s (YSRCP) plans have also gone haywire. The party chief, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy may have to cut short his public meetings being held as part of ‘Samara Shankaravam’ programme. The party had planned 13 public meetings in 13 districts, out of which only four were held. According to party sources, two more meetings may take place while the rest may be cancelled due to paucity of time. The party is also in a dilemma on what to do with a number of campaign programmes like cycle rallies and other awareness programmes that had to take place before filing the nominations. One major concern for the party is on how to immediately have a system in place to energise and monitor their booth-level workers as their rival, TDP, is known to be very strong at grassroot level.
