Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti is said to be ready for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of “one nation-one election” if the issue ever comes up for discussion and a consensus will be arrived at the Niti Aayog meeting convened by the PM with the Chief Ministers on Sunday.
Simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and the state assembly are being held in the undivided AP since 1999. The TRS faced simultaneous polls in 2004, 2009 and 2014.
TRS party sources said that the ruling party was not averse to face advance elections in December along with Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan under the “one nation-one election” model.
The TRS government’s term will end in the first week of June 2019 and it feels that losing a five-month tenure will not make much of a difference to the party image.
In this direction, the TRS government has stepped up efforts to implement all its flagship programmes by November, to brace up and face advance polls in December. Speculations are rife that Mr Modi is pitching for simultaneous elections in states which are scheduled to go for polls in 2018 and 2019.
In December 2018, the assembly elections were due in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram and in early-2019, elections are due in AP, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.
The PM wants Assembly elections in these 10 states to be held along with Lok Sabha elections in December 2018. Political circles are abuzz that BJP can get over anti-incumbency in BJP-ruled states banking on the popularity of Mr Modi.
BJP is also worried that if it loses Assembly elections in MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh in December, it may have an adverse impact on its prospects in April/May 2019 Lok Sabha elections and simultaneous polls in December 2018 is the better option to overcome this.
Moreover, BJP feels that this will also give no scope for all non-BJP parties to unite and emerge as a strong force to take on NDA due to lack of sufficient time if Lok Sabha elections are held in December 2018.
The TRS on the other hand has been making all efforts to execute Mission Bhagiratha on full-scale from August, complete Kaleshwaram project by September, distribute second phase of Rs 4,000 per acre Rythu Bandhu cheques to over 58 lakh farmers in October and brace up for simultaneous polls in December, if at all they are held. Deccan Chronicle
