Rajasekhar Reddy and Naidu: Who will take the chair?

Hyderabad, May 10: By sundown tomorrow, voters in Andhra Pradesh would know if they had pressed — as pollsters have predicted — the button for change or another five years of rule by . Chandrababu Naidu.

Thanks to the 1.29 lakh EVMs, the fate of the over 1,800 candidates who contested for the 294 seats for a place in the 12th Assembly will be known in a few hours after counting begins at 8 in the morning.

Over 3.57 crore voters had exercised their franchise.

State election officer M. Narayana Rao said 10,000 people will take part in the counting at 115 centres spread over 42 cities and towns. Elaborate security arrangements have been made to ensure smooth counting. “The final tally will be known by afternoon, but we can give the final lead on which party will form the government at noon itself,” he said.

The last two days have seen a rush of politicians of all hues to astrologers as well as cardiologists. Naidu himself went for a check-up at CARE hospital yesterday, while Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao performed a yagna at his residence. “There have been 15 to 20 such visits by politicians to various heart institutes in the state,” said Somaraju, a senior cardiologist of CARE hospital.

The Assembly building has been given a fresh coat of paint. The secretariat building, too, is getting a facelift.

Both the main players — Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, which had 179 members in the 11th Assembly, and the 91-strong Congress which fought the elections in alliance with the TRS — have been keeping their fingers crossed.

Bookies also are busy and the odds on betting against the Desam have gone down. The odds on the Congress have, however, strengthened to between 65 and 70 paise. As usual, Guntur district’s Chirala town, the retail handloom centre of south India, dominated with bettings of over Rs 500 crore so far.

Asked what provoked such betting, a market player said: “If the Desam wins the Assembly polls, it will accelerate the reforms process and public spending will go up. If it looses the state but emerges marginally with Lok Sabha seats, the Desam will still be with the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre.”

The Desam has never won in 20 seats in Telengana throughout its existence of 22 years. The Congress, too, has not won in 35 seats of the region and the north coastal area of the state in the last 25 years.

The Telengana region, which besides the 107 Assembly seats has 15 parliamentary seats, holds the key to the future of Andhra politics. With the standoff posed by the TRS against joining a Congress government, it is to be seen what would happen in the event of a hung Assembly.

Soon after his return from Delhi this morning, Congress leader Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy left for Adilabad to participate in the unveiling of a statue of the late Congress minister, G. Gaddenna.

As if indicating the growing recognition of Reddy as chief minister in waiting, a police picket was placed outside his house in Banjara Hills. “If all goes well for the Congress, there will be two platoons by tomorrow afternoon. Or else, even these policemen will go back,” said a senior inspector of the Banjara Hills police station.