Cong-TRS gets two-thirds majority in AP
The Congress-led alliance swept aside the TDP and came to power in Andhra Pradesh after nine years. Prominent winners & losers
The Congress-led alliance swept aside the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and came to power in Andhra Pradesh after nine years. The Congress itself fell a little short of a two-thirds majority.
The opposition party got 185 seats in the 294-member assembly and with its allies secured 226 seats. The Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) won 26 seats, the CPI(M) nine and the CPI six.
The Congress Legislature Party will meet on Wednesday to elect its leader. But it is widely expected that state party leader Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy will become the next chief minister and the meeting will rubber-stamp the decision to make him the chief minister that was taken some time ago. Ghulam Nabi Azad and Shivraj Patil, who were appointed observers, reached Hyderabad on Tuesday.
The TDP managed to win 47 seats. Its ally, the BJP, got only two. Only eight of the 36 ministers in TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu's council of ministers managed to retain their seats.
What was remarkable was that the TDP-BJP lost heavily in all the three regions in the state -- Telengana, Rayalseema and the coastal areas. Pre-election expectations that there would be a backlash against the TRS's campaign, built around the demand for a separate Telengana state, in the other two regions proved unfounded. In Telengana the winning alliance almost swept the polls. The TRS lost a few seats because of rebel candidates.
Despite its massive majority, the Congress said it would like the TRS to be part of the government. The TRS said it would not. It hoped the Congress would honour its promise of working towards creating a separate Telengana state and that it would continue its movement to achieve that end.
After the results were announced the Congress promised to focus on development and said it would try to alleviate the conditions of the weaker sections. It also promised to keep the good work that Naidu had done going.
Reddy said that the first thing the Congress government would do would be to provide free power to farmers. He said the weaker sections had voted the TDP out of power because it had failed to address their needs. Reddy also said that he had felt the pulse of the people during his padayatra, which covered most of the state, and had realised they would give his party a decisive mandate.
Naidu, who resigned on Tuesday, said his party would play the role of a "constructive opposition" and extend full co-operation to the new government.