HYDERABAD’S IT CORRIDOR is 12km away from the Congress party office in Telangana. What connects them though is a common problem—a high attrition rate.
In the last assembly elections held in December, the Congress won just 19 seats in the 119-member assembly. Six months later, it is in a pitiable state. Twelve of the 19 MLAs have crossed over to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). State Congress chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, who was an MLA from Huzurnagar, resigned after being elected as an MP from Nalgonda. That brought down the party’s tally to six. Now, two Congress MLAs have hinted that they may join the BJP. The mood in the Congress camp is sombre, and party leaders seem to be directionless.
“Till the time somebody leaves the party, we do not know about it. I would not be surprised if a few more MLAs leave,” said a Congress leader.
Moreover, the 12 MLAs who defected to the TRS gave a representation to the assembly speaker to merge the Congress Legislature Party with the ruling TRS. The speaker accepted their request, leading to the Congress losing the status of main opposition party. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, said to be friendly to the TRS, became the second largest party in the assembly, with seven seats. The state, therefore, no longer has a formidable opposition.
Senior Congress leaders took to the streets, protesting against the speaker for not accepting their petition to disqualify the “poached” MLAs. They had also approached the high court, which served notices to the defected MLAs. “This is a deliberate attempt to weaken the spirit of democracy,” said Dasoju Sravan Kumar, national spokesperson of the All India Congress Committee. “The TRS wants to be as big as possible. When they have a majority, what is the reason for promoting defections? Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is intolerant to alternate views and does not like to be questioned. He wants to establish a dictatorial regime. Since there are court orders on the defections, we submitted a representation to the speaker to disqualify [the MLAs]. But, he played a dubious role.”
Kumar added that it was “sheer opportunism” on part of the BJP to lure its MLAs. He wondered how the MLAs who plan to join the saffron party would fight the TRS when they failed to do so while being in the Congress, which had a strong structure in the state.
But, the big question is why are Congress MLAs and leaders leaving the party in hordes? Some political analysts point out that most of these leaders have business interests, and therefore migrate to the ruling party either to better their financial position or to escape future probes on their establishments.
Dasoju Sravan Kumar
“If an MLA spends Rs 20 crore to Rs 30 crore on his election, he has to recover or repay that money once he gets elected. The defections may have helped,” said a Congress candidate who had contested the last assembly elections. “Also, opposition party MLAs are not taken seriously even by a lower-level government official. It makes sense for them to cross over to the ruling party and get the work done in their constituencies and keep voters happy.”
In a way, the inability of the Congress leadership to stop the desertions has been exposed in a big way. A senior Congress leader narrated a recent incident involving an MLA who switched over to the TRS. When the party got news that he was about to join the ruling party, the high command asked one of the leaders to talk him out of it. “We called the MLA, who said that he was literally being kidnapped and forced by the TRS leaders to join the party,” said the leader. “His phone was switched off for a few hours. In the evening, we watched him on TV, flashing a smile and standing amid the leaders of his new party. If public representatives behave this irresponsibly, how can we engage with them?”
Meanwhile, the BJP is upbeat about its own prospects in the near future. “The Congress is in the doldrums,” said Ravula Sridhar Reddy, state BJP spokesperson. “Those who want to fight KCR are looking towards us. We have emerged as a strong alternative in Telangana.” He added that even MLAs from the TRS are in touch with senior BJP leaders. “It is only a matter of time before leaders from other parties join the BJP,” he said.
But, some are still hopeful that it is not the end of the road for the Congress. Political analyst K. Nageshwar said that defections were common when a party loses. “The losing party will be vulnerable. What matters is people’s support, and not the leaders,” said the former member of the legislative council. “In Andhra Pradesh, 23 YSR Congress Party MLAs joined the Telugu Desam Party. Did it make any difference? The YSR Congress registered a huge win. In the recent general elections, the Congress won three seats, despite many party MLAs joining the TRS.”