Naidu: Self-help

Hyderabad, April 18: With less than 48 hours to go before polling opens in Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu is hoping to reap the benefits of mobilising his “women army”, keeping a finger on the voters’ pulse through booth committees and working on the Congress-Telengana Rashtra Samiti rebels.

First, the DWCRA women. There are more than 60 lakh in the 4.75 lakh Development for Women and Children in Rural Areas groups spread across the state. Members of the self-help teams make up 20 per cent of the women voters and 10 per cent of the electorate in the state.

The women, mostly of the Madiga (scheduled caste) and other backward castes, are a captive vote bank for Naidu. DWCRA has divided families along political lines, with the indoctrinated women rooting for the Telugu Desam Party and their husbands or fathers or brothers unable to persuade them to vote for anybody else.

Utilising RSS expertise, courtesy the BJP alliance, the Desam has set up booth committees — of a convener and four members each — at the block level. “They will watch the movements, intentions and tilt of people and report to the high command to take remedial measures,” said a Desam source.

“(The) Ultimate strategy of Babu (Naidu) is to win. He will not leave any constituency. If the crowd was thin at his public meeting in Rajamundhry, he will review and take steps to reverse the situation,” said Gaddam Bhaskar of the department of economics, Kakatiya University, and a pro-Desam intellectual.

“There is a 2 to 3 per cent last-minute swing. Naidu will manage that. Congress-TRS is in a much worse condition with scores of strong rebels in the fray. Congress-TRS rebels have identity and can damage Opposition prospects whereas TDP rebels have no identity of their own. It is a vote for Naidu and nothing else,” Bhaskar added.

A state Congress leader admitted as much. Especially in the Telengana region, there are 17 rebels from the Congress and 16 from the TRS, some of them stronger than the official candidates. “We are giving 20 to 25 Assembly seats to Naidu on a platter. We would have easily won 90-95 of the 107 seats in the region. Wrong identification of candidates has created havoc,” he said.

Naidu has been working on women by giving them 51 tickets for the Assembly polls, as against 23 by the Congress. But Congress and Left leaders downplayed the impact of DWCRA in the elections.

Madi Reddy, the CPI’s Nalgonda district secretariat member, said the impact would be little. “The TDP is supplying saris to DWCRA women using village officers,” he alleged.

A. Pendulu, a bus conductor and supporter of CPI candidate Sudhakar Reddy in the district, said: “They are Desam cadre and their votes are in any case with Naidu.”

Two days after the sari stampede in Lucknow, the Mriyalaguda Municipal Corporation chairman hosted a dinner for 1,000 DWCRA women. After a sumptuous meal, including both mutton and chicken, the invitees were paid Rs 100 each. The wall behind the dais was plastered with yellow paper — the colour of the Desam flag. But the party symbol was not there for fear of the model code of conduct.

Naidu has been concentrating on DWCRA women in Telengana as the Desam is on a much weaker ground there than in coastal Andhra and Rayalseema, thanks to the statehood sentiment catching up and the Congress-TRS alliance.