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Congress show in AP civic polls shocks TDP

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

The just-concluded civic polls in Andhra Pradesh have turned out to be a repeat of the simultaneous assembly and Lok Sabha elections held in the state in September last.

The ruling Telugu Desam Party and Bharatiya Janata Party alliance managed to get around two-thirds of the civic bodies, thanks to their poll alliance.

However, the two allies could not contain their common rival -- the main opposition Congress party -- from putting up a good show. In fact, the Congress was able to improve upon its performance by bagging one-third of the civic bodies now as against the 30 per cent of the assembly seats it got in September last.

The TDP won the chairpersons' posts in 54 municipalities and its poll ally -- the BJP -- got these posts in nine municipalities, pushing the alliance tally to 63.

The TDP bagged the Guntur and Vijayawada municipal corporations while the BJP wrested the Warangal municipal corporation.

Independents emerged victorious in four municipalities and Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen in one municipality, according to final figures released by the state Election Commission on Sunday morning.

The Congress secured 35 municipal chairpersons' posts and mayors' posts in Visakhapatnam and Kurnool. Thus, the party's tally includes 15 municipalities in the Telangana region, 13 in coastal Andhra and seven in the Rayalaseema region, apart from one municipal corporation each in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

In the 1999 assembly polls, out of the 294 seats, the ruling TDP had secured 180 and its poll ally-- the BJP-- 12 seats. The Congress bagged 91 seats, followed by independents five seats, Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen four seats and CPI-M two seats.

In the previous civic elections in March 1995, the Congress had bagged 42 municipalities, while the TDP and BJP got 34 and five municipalities.

Independents accounted for the chairpersons' posts in two municipalities and the Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen in two municipalities.

Of the five corporations, the Congress and TDP had secured two each and the CPI one (that is Vijayawada). Polls were held for 94 municipalities and five corporations at that time. The Congress gains were obvious then, since the TDP and the BJP had contested the polls on their own without any alliance.

However, the Congress' performance this time is all the more significant as it fought back the combined might of the TDP-BJP alliance and notched up victories in one-third of the municipalities and corporations. This, despite the fact that there was not much of a coordinated effort in the Congress and AP Congress unit president Y S Rajasekhar Reddy could not undertake extensive campaigning after he sustained a severe leg injury.

Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu, on the other hand, had campaigned for almost a fortnight, covering as many as 91 municipalities and corporations out of the 108 that went to the polls.

The BJP leadership, too, undertook hectic electioneering not only in the 19 municipalities and the Warangal municipal corporation contested by the party but also in the civic bodies where the TDP was in the fray.

The TDP released a manifesto for the civic polls, promising many things to the urban residents.

The BJP, too, came out with its own manifesto, listing out the policies and programmes to be taken up by the party if it gained control over the civic bodies. The Congress, on the other hand, did not release a manifesto.

The party also did not make any promises but focussed its campaign on the acts of omission and commission of the TDP government over the last five years.

In this backdrop, the civic poll results failed to enthuse the TDP and BJP leaders who were hoping to make a clean sweep of the civic bodies and inflict a "crippling blow" on the Congress.

Chandrababu Naidu gave vent to his disappointment when he told his senior colleagues that the poll outcome fell short of the party's expectations.

The TDP chief felt that the TDP-BJP combine should have got 10 to 15 more chairpersons' posts.

The combine was expecting to bag at least 90 municipalities and even the state intelligence had predicted 85 to 90 municipalities going to the two allies.

The Congress not only scored surprise victories in two corporations (Kurnool and Vizag) but also inflicted defeat on the ruling party in six municipalities falling under the assembly constituencies represented by ministers.

Kukatpally municipality under the Khairatabad assembly segment (represented by Minister for Roads and Buildings K Vijarayama Rao), Mahbubnagar municipality in the same assembly segment (represented by Minister for Law and Courts P Chandrasekhar), Medak municipality in the same assembly segment (represented by Minister for Higher Education Karnam Ramachandra Rao), Nandyal municipality in the same segment (represented by Minister for Municipal Administration N Mohammed Farooq), Ramachandrapuram municipality in the same segment (represented by Minister for Cooperation Chikkala Ramachandra Rao) and Amudalavalasa municipality in the same segment (represented by Minister for Small Scale Industries T Seetharam) were all bagged by the Congress nominees for chairperson's posts. Similarly, Adilabad municipality in the same segment (represented by Minister for Handlooms and Textiles Padala Bhumanna) has been wrested by an independent.

Chandrababu Naidu admitted that the party lost in the municipalities where the party was weak or places where the candidates had no contact with the voters.

He also attributed the party's debacle in the Vizag and Kurnool municipal corporations to the wrong choice and negative image of the candidates for the municipal divisions by the local units.

The presence of party rebels who contested against the official nominees, the lack of coordination between the TDP and BJP cadres and groupism within the TDP ranks were other factors for the party's defeat in several municipalities.

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