TRS mega rally in Telangana: Is CM KCR preparing for early elections?

That Telangana is gearing up for an early election, there can be no doubt about it. Everything in the capital city points towards it. There are huge hoardings, all with the visage of the state chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, towering cutouts all along the Outer Ring Road and even the flowering bushes have pink flowers, the party’s colour. Nothing can be a coincidence here. The state was expected to go to polls only in 2019.

Whether the Chief Minister will announce the dates at what is being called as the ‘mother of all rallies’ on Sunday afternoon at the meeting known as “Pragati Niveda”, hasn’t been confirmed yet. Most likely news on this will come only after a week and there are indications that he will. Rao is expected to meet his Cabinet in the afternoon before addressing the public gathering. In the words of his daughter and Nizamabad MP K Kavitha, “The CM is likely to announce multiple schemes for the people in the run-up to the elections. There is already a lot of goodwill among the citizens for the CM.” In these last four years, sops worth Rs 50,000 crore have announced, on Sunday, schemes worth several thousand are likely to be announced.

The meeting set to be held at a 2000-acre site at Ibrahimpatnam in Kongara Kalan on the city outskirts is expected to attract 25 lakh people from around the state. Abutting the Outer Ring Road in Hyderabad city, the meeting area has around 15 approach roads and at least 5 new roads were laid to ensure smooth traffic to and from the venue. “The state has 119 Assembly constituencies and even if 20,000 people come from each of them, it will be more than 20 lakh. It is going to be a massive event and it is completely funded by the party and not by the government. This is not the first time we have held such a rally. Even two years ago, we had mobilised a rally, which saw an attendance of more than 10 lakh people,” emphasised Kavitha.

“More than a lakh people have already arrived at the site on Saturday. We have made arrangements for their dinner and stay. Toilets have been set up as have drinking water facilities,” pointed out the MP.

The massive mobilisation is seen as the attempt by the CM and his Cabinet to woo the masses before the election code sets in. According to the word on the ground, KCR is expecting a Congress wave and doesn’t want to be caught up in it. And in case, there is a BJP wave, he wants to steer clear of it too. “We are a regional party and there is hardly any opposition in the state. Congress is a distant second and BJP is not even a force,” asserted Kavitha.

The TRS leaders have hired 7,000 buses from the state transport division at the rates available and other vehicles to transport people to the venue. “More than 40 transformers have been put up at the site and we have already paid Rs 30 lakh to the electricity department,” pointed out the MP.

In addition to this around 1500 acres has been developed with 16 parking lots to accommodate more than one lakh vehicles.