As possibility of early Telangana Assembly election looms large, BJP and Congress begin chalking out campaign plans

Hyderabad: In the light of possible early polls in Telangana, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress have started drawing plans for election campaigns and rallies. As the political atmosphere is heating up in the state, the BJP and Congress have made plans to hold several rallies, to be addressed by their senior leaders. On 6 September, Telangana governor ESL Narasimhan dissolved the state Assembly giving a nod for early Assembly elections in the state, following a recommendation from K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR)-led cabinet. The governor, however, asked Rao to continue as caretaker Chief Minister until the new government is formed. Following this political turn of events, Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) announced to hold large public meetings in 100 Assembly constituencies over the next 50 days. [caption id=“attachment_4490353” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] To counter TRS’ rallies, the BJP has also planned to organise two large public meetings in the state. Sharing details of the election preparedness, senior BJP leader and MLC N Ramchander Raon told ANI, “We have decided to organise two large public meetings: one in south Telangana and one in north Telangana. On 15 September, in south Telangana in Mehboobnagar town, more than one lakh people will attend the rally along with public workers. BJP president Amit Shah will be addressing this rally. The second rally will be in Karimnagar, North Telangana at the end of this month.” Briefing about plans of national leaders coming up for the campaign in Telangana state, he further added, “We are also planning to hold rallies in each 119 Assembly segments. In these rallies, national leaders of our party such as Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley will be addressing the public. We are also expecting chief ministers of BJP ruled states to hold public meetings in the state.” “Apart from this we are having few more rallies and we are expecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come and address the rallies during the time of elections. Party chief Amit Shah will be visiting Telangana a number of times. We have started election campaign in Telangana through meeting and cycle rallies,” he informed. Besides BJP, the Congress party has also chalked out plans for election campaigns in the state. Sharing the Congress roadmap for election campaign in Telangana, the party leader, Ponnam Prabhakar told ANI, “We are ready to face the elections. This election fight is between KCR family and the Telangana people. This time we will form the government. All the national leaders will visit Telangana and address the people in coming days.” Congress leader also criticised KCR’s TRS and said, “TRS party has claimed that they have done work which was not done in last 60 years, and now they are saying they will organise 100 meetings in 50 days. I want to ask them if they have really done so much hard work what’s the need to come on the road and campaign heavily. By this, we can understand K Chandrashekhar Rao government has done nothing in his term. But they have taken two lakh crores of loans.” Assembly election in Telangana is scheduled for April or May 2019 in the normal course.