Why Chandrababu wants to play big in Telangana ? :::: Mild setback to Pawar-Uddhav duo; BJP and NDA win big in Maharashtra council polls

The issue before TDP leadership is not what N Chandrababu Naidu should do or not do in Delhi that is national politics. 

The original CEO of Indian politics is more concerned about playing it up again in Telangana.

The elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in 2025 could see Naidu enter the Telangana battlefield and try to tap into the votebank that still feels 'nostalgic' about his role in transforming the city called Hyderabad.   

In the November 2023 assembly elections in Telangana, Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena contested alongside the BJP. The alliance came a cropper. However, the Andhra victory tonic has given the parties the vigour to give it a second shot. 

So much emphasis was given to IT that the city could be called Cyberabad.  

The fact that the TDP and the BJP have fought together in united Andhra Pradesh in the past, would make many consider the possibility of fielding the same alliance that swept Andhra in Telangana. 

The BRS smells a rat in the much-publicised meeting of the chief ministers of the two Telugu states on Saturday. For all the hype, it achieved little as only committees were set up to look into contentious issues. 

"The party suspects this is part of the game plan to revive the TDP in Telangana as a counter to the BRS," says an article in 'India Today'.

But for Naidu to do well in Telangana, the TDP would need the people of Telangana forget that a decade ago, Naidu had adopted a wishy-washy attitude to bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh? 

The BRS would see an opening to polarise opinion around Naidu by labelling him as an anti-Telangana force. It would give it a chance to revive Telangana sentiment by interpreting the TDP's moves as one designed to take Telangana back to the pre-2014 days when it was controlled by leaders from Andhra. KCR's reason to quit the TDP in 2001 and launch the movement for statehood of Telangana was his claim that Naidu as chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh was not fair to the cause of the Telangana districts. 

The other part of the story is that the Telangana sentiment is no longer as dominant as it was in the first decade of the state's formation, otherwise KCR would not have bit the dust last December.

In the November 2023 assembly elections in Telangana, Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena contested alongside the BJP. The alliance came a cropper. However, the Andhra victory tonic has given the parties the vigour to give it a second shot. 

When Naidu was in the company of Telangana's new Chief Minister Revanth Reddy inside Praja Bhavan, the structure built by their bete noire K Chandrasekhar Rao in Hyderabad, the irony of the optics was not lost.

Here were two leaders who KCR had targeted in 2015. While he sent Reddy to jail for 30 days in the Cash-for-Votes scandal in which he was accused of trying to bribe an Independent MLA to vote for the TDP in the MLC election, the pressure mounted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau made it difficult for Naidu to continue working out of Hyderabad.

In 2019, KCR openly supported YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and haughtily spoke about giving Naidu a “return gift”. 

Today, the roles have reversed. KCR is struggling to save his party while Reddy and Naidu are in the limelight, says the article.   

BJP, NDA win big in Maharashtra council polls

Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti sweeps Maharashtra council polls, wins 9 of 11 seats

The ruling Mahayuti alliance of the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra won all the nine seats it contested in the biennial elections. Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) managed to win two seats.

A total of 12 candidates were in the fray for the 11 seats in the Upper House of the state legislature where the 274 current members of the Legislative Assembly form the electoral college.

BJP's Pankaja Munde, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe, Yogesh Tilekar and Sadabhav Khot are among ten candidates who have won the Maharashtra MLC elections as counting for the remaining one seat is underway.

Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate Jayant Patil, who was supported by Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), lost the polls.

The election was necessitated as 11 members of the legislative council (MLCs) are completing their six-year term on July 27.

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