Naidu: Poll jitters

New Delhi, Feb. 28: Rattled by the Congress-Telengana Rashtra Samiti alliance, . Chandrababu Naidu is working on a strategy to neutralise the impact the combine may have in coastal Andhra Pradesh and the Rayalaseema region.

The Telugu Desam Party chief intends to whip up opposition to the creation of a separate Telengana state and prop up rebel Congress candidates to divide Congress-Samiti votes. He will also counter the gains expected by the Congress in Telengana by unleashing a campaign against the party in the coastal and Rayalaseema areas.

The other parties in the Congress fold are the CPI, the CPM and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen .

The Desam won 29 of Andhra’s 42 Lok Sabha seats during the 1999 elections; the BJP won seven seats and the Congress five. The Desam-BJP alliance won by less than 100,000 votes in most constituencies. Its victory margins were the lowest in the six seats it won in the Telengana region.

Telengana sends 16 MPs to the Lok Sabha, coastal Andhra 18 and Rayalaseema eight.

In the Rayalaseema region, Naidu’s party won the Kurnool constituency by 24,000 votes and Rajampet by 27,000 votes. Chittoor, Naidu’s native district, was won by 18,000 votes. The BJP won Tirupati by a 12,000 margin.

The Desam won in Warangal by 13,000 votes, in Peddappaly by a 15,889 margin and in Nizamabad by 3,436 votes. Ally BJP won Karimnagar by over 19,000 votes; its Medak winning margin was 22,000 votes.

Naidu has to overcome the anti-incumbency feeling his eight years in power might have created. His task is more difficult in the backward Telengana region where he is known to be totally opposed to a separate state. The Desam-BJP alliance could end up losing heavily in the region — the Rashtra Samiti was not in the fray in 1999.

Desam insiders say those in the coastal and Rayalaseema areas are not as sensitive or emotional as their counterparts in Telengana.

“They don’t express sentiments publicly, but will teach the Congress a lesson through the ballot. If a separate state is carved out, both hi-tech Hyderabad and Secunderabad will go to Telengana, which nobody wants. (The) Andhra people… toiled to make the twin cities what they are today,” a source said.