The strong Telangana sentiment pushed even anti-incumbency votes into Chandrashekar Rao’s kitty
On polling day, Sujatha, a maid in Secunderabad, finished her work early so that she could cast her vote. On learning that her name was not on the rolls of the nearest polling station, but in her village in Mahaboobnagar, she travelled 120km just to exercise her right. “I heard that Chandrababu Naidu is coming to rule us,” said Sujatha. “Why should we allow Andhra domination again? I wanted to vote for the Congress as I was not very happy with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) rule. But, I voted for TRS because our self respect is more important.”
The TRS eventually stomped to victory, winning 88 of 119 seats, while the People’s Front—comprising the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the CPI(M) and the Telangana Jana Samithi—got only 21. Like Sujatha, many who opposed the caretaker chief minister, K. Chandrashekar Rao, aka KCR, ended up voting for his party. They had united to keep out Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP national president, Chandrababu Naidu.
This story is from the December 23, 2018 edition of THE WEEK.
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This story is from the December 23, 2018 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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