The two parties expected that KCR would call them for talks, and announce the names of BRS candidates after a seat-sharing agreement.
Published Aug 22, 2023 | 9:07 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 23, 2023 | 1:37 PM
TRS celebrations after Munugode. (Ajay Tomar/South First)
The BRS’ list of candidates for 115 of the 119 seats in the Telangana Assembly has left the Communist leaders red-faced. After going through the list, the CPI and CPI(M) leaders cried foul over what they considered a great betrayal.
“We joined hands with the BRS as our aim was to bring down the BJP. Had we not helped, the BRS would have lost the Munugode by-election,” Telangana CPI(M) secretary Thammineni Veerabhadram told South First.
The two parties expected that KCR would call them for talks, and announce the names of BRS candidates after finalising a seat-sharing agreement.
Now, the two Left parties are looking at the Congress as a potential partner in the state.
Both CPI and CPI(M) are already part of the Opposition coalition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) with Congress at the national level.
The two Left parties are feeling let down now: They believe that the BRS, after taking their support in the Munugode by-election in November 2022, left them in the lurch.
“We did not expect anything more from a bourgeois party like the BRS,” said dejected CPI(M) district secretary N Nageswara Rao.
KCR had shared the dais with the Communist leaders when he addressed a huge public meeting in Chandur in the Munugode Assembly segment ahead of the by-election. He had praised the leaders and their parties sky-high.
He said the two parties were partners in ushering in a better India, by ridding the nation of the evil that was the BJP. The two communist parties would be his partners in pursuit of the state’s growth and prosperity.
According to Nageswara Rao, the BJP was no longer a threat in Telangana. “Its influence is on the wane. There is no point now for us to run after KCR and plead with him to take us as poll partners to defeat the BJP.”
He added: “Anyway, he has announced tickets for almost all seats. There is nothing that can be done now. We supported the BRS in Munugode not to help him win but to bring down the BJP which was an enemy to the nation.”
The two parties held meetings on Tuesday, 22 August, to discuss the way forward for them.
They are understood to have more or less decided to contest the ensuing Assembly elections together and cause as much damage to the ruling BRS as possible. They believe that KCR bit the hand that fed him in Munugode.
After the joint meeting, the two parties made it clear that they would show KCR in the upcoming Assembly elections what they were capable of.
Telangana CPI secretary Kunamneni Samabsiva Rao said: “We will work to defeat the BRS in the next elections to the Assembly.”
He said KCR had let them down because he had moved closer to the BJP. “Though we have no alliance, we will not use abusive language against KCR, but will expose his anti-people policies,” he said.
He said KCR did not even follow “mitra dharma” and redefined politics as nothing but betraying friends. “Had the Left parties not supported the BRS, was there any possibility of its candidate winning the by-election in Munugode?” he asked.
Thammineni Veerabhadram recalled KCR saying that he would henceforth work with the communist parties in all elections.
“The problem is not about the number of seats. We are against the line he has taken towards us,” he said, wondering if KCR was distancing himself from the communist parties as they are part of the 26-party Opposition INDIA coalition.
The two Left parties are now contemplating fighting the Telangana Assembly elections together.
“We will place our proposals in the Politburo. As we are in INDIA, we might align with the Congress in the Telangana elections, too. But these are proposals which our party national leadership has to accept,” said Veerabhadram.
That the BRS would not have won Munugode without the support of the CPI and the CPI(M) is plain as daylight.
The two parties together had about 20,000 votes in the constituency. The margin of victory for BRS candidate K Prabhakar Reddy was about 10,000, which meant that he would have been defeated without the support of the communist outfits.
In the byelection last year, Prabhakar Reddy polled 96,598 votes (42.95 percent), while his nearest rival and BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy secured 86,485 votes (38.38 percent).
The Congress finished a poor third, with its candidate Palvai Sravanthi polling just 23,864 votes and forfeiting the security deposit as she could not get one-sixth of the polled votes.
The two communist parties have got a good presence in Munugode. The people in the constituency — at least the older generation — are under the influence of the communist ideology.
In fact, the Maoists’ writ used to be the diktat in parts of the constituency. The two parties have considerable influence among workers and farm labourers there.
Realising intuitively that without the support of communists, the going may not be easy, KCR quickly mended his relations with them before the Munugode bypolls.
Now that the BJP is no longer a threat to him in Telangana after the Congress won in Karnataka, KCR seems to have jettisoned the two communist parties.
