Telugu Desam party is shaken by Warangal earthquake. The poor performance of the TDP-BJP combine has given credence to the TRS chief KCR’s oft repeated assertion that TDP is an Andhra Party and it has no place in Telangana. The rejection of the party by the Warangal voters was so devastating that party supremo Chandrababu Naidu is planning to redraw the political strategy for the Telangana keeping in view the ensuing elections for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). The Telangana state government is moving ahead with the objective of conducting the elections to the GHMC before January 31. Naidu is seriously thinking of preventing the Warangal aftershocks travel to Hyderabad and dismantle the last port of call of the party ie GHMC. Losing GHMC is certain to close the Telangana doors for the party in 2019. TDP sources said the leadership is in the grip of the fear of GHMC. Hitherto the notion that the TDP is a forces in GHMC where so called settlers outnumber the original T-voters, has given it an hypothetical strength.
Post-Warangal, the general feeling among the functionaries of government and the party is that Naidu had made a strategic mistake in shifting base to Vijayawada prematurely. After Warangal, the question being asked by T-TDP leaders is that can Naidu defend the last bastion of the party ie GHMC with his Amaravati centric politico-economic strategy.
A senior functionary of the TDP from Telangana confided in ‘telugu360.com’ that Naidu’s decision to shift the capital from Hyderabad to Vijayawada has started taking its toll on the party. This development will force shift the voters towards TRS in the absence of a credible political rival force. ” Naidu’s Shifting to Vijayawada is not a mature decision and is bereft of any political vision, the cost of which is strongly felt in Warangal. GHMC may not be immune to this political transformation,” he said.According to the leader, who wants to be anonymous, even the Revanth episode has also had its negative impact on the party’s performance in Warangal.
Many Telangana leaders are of the opinion that TDP has lost its edge in Telangana because of Naidu’s over emphasis on Amaravati and insistence on shifting to Vijayawada. “His overnight flight to Vijayawada and his statements asking the employees to rush to Vijayawada is a moral defeat for the party in Telangana. All these developments have left the entire political field in Telangabna wide open for Telangana Rashtra Samiti to conquer. Once party leader leaves the war zone, war is lost,” he said adding that allocating the seat to BJP is another mistake in the post-Telangana politics. According to the leader, all TDP’s loyal voters, seem to have shifted to TRS en masse in Warangal. Party sources feel that Naidu should now slow down the shifting of administration to Vijayawada and stay put in Hyderabad on the pretext that office space and residential accommodation is not available in Vijayawada. Similarly Naidu can also take shelter under the centre stating that the shifting of capital is being hampered by the delay in the release of central assistance to Amaravati.
The shifting of temporary capital has put an enormous burden on the state exchequer but without any political gain. After the miserable failure of the party in Warangal, Naidu seems to have lost both money and image in TS. On Saturday, when he visits Hyderabad, some T-TDP sources believe, Naidu may drop hints at his revised strategy to come back to Hyderabad for some time and formulate a strategy for GHMC, if he really had no political understanding with Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
