The reports that the Election Commission of India is all set to announce the schedule for general elections in the country in the last week of February has generated a lot of heat in the political atmosphere in Andhra Pradesh.
According to reports, the EC might announce the election schedule for Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections on February 25.
Along with AP, elections would be held to Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim as well.
Though Telangana, too, should have gone to elections along with these states, they were advanced to December 7 due to premature dissolution of the state assembly by Telanga Rashtra Samithi government headed by K Chandrasekhar Rao on September 6.
Now that the TRS had won the assembly elections, KCR is sitting pretty and very much relaxed. He can now face the Lok Sabha elections without any tension.
Since his party had got a landslide victory in the assembly elections, he is confident of bagging 16 out of 17 MP seats in the state, taking advantage of the demoralized opposition parties, particularly the Congress, over the recent debacle.
But tension has started in Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
He has to win not only assembly elections to retain power, but also considerable number of MP seats so that the TDP would play a major role in national politics as part of anti-BJP front.
Going by the political situation in his state, it will be tough task for Naidu to retain power, let alone winning good number of MP seats, in the wake of growing popularity graph of YSR Congress party and simultaneous attack from the Jana Sena Party headed by power star Pawan Kalyan, besides BJP.
Yet, Naidu is putting up a brave front. Following reports of a possible announcement of election schedule by the EC, he held a meeting with his senior party leaders to work out the strategies. He asked the party leaders to get ready for elections to be announced at any time.
Naidu wanted the party leaders to take it extensively into the people that Andhra Pradesh had witnessed huge developments during the last four and a half years of TDP government and that this development would be stopped in the state if TDP failed in the election.
He said that the welfare programmes of TDP will bring success to the party and asked the leaders to complete the membership enrollments within one week.