Since the media and the public focus has, in general, been on the outcome in the three north Indian State Assembly elections, the result in Telangana has not got the attention it deserved. This is the only State, barring Chhattisgarh, where a significant pre-poll alliance was in the fray. It was a collation that was supposed to set a template for a larger anti-BJP coalition for 2019. And it failed, having been trounced by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
The Congress had tied up with the Telugu Desam Party and two other regional outfits in the hope that it could cash in on local sentiments. The TDP thought likewise. The failure of the grand alliance — and the failure was spectacular — has lessons of national importance.
The first is that a coalition crafted merely to counter an individual is unlikely to work. In Telangana, the TDP aligned with the Congress to cock a snook at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After having left the BJP-led NDA, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu allowed his bitterness against the BJP to override regional realities. By teaming up with the Congress, which is the BJP’s main rival at the national level, Naidu thought he had hit the BJP where it hurt the most.
Such alliances have had a sorry past. Leaders of all hues and with differing political ideologies had got together in 1977 to oust Indira Gandhi, but that combine could not last beyond three years. More recently, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress — again poles apart — joined hands in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election to combat the BJP, but failed miserably. The Congress and the Left parties, rivals in States such as Kerala, entered into a tacit understanding in West Bengal to defeat Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, and had to bite the dust. The Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) post-poll coalition in Karnataka, again of two parties with vastly different outlooks but bound together by their dislike for the BJP, is not functioning smoothly. The BJP had similarly partnered with the People’s Democratic Party of Jammu & Kashmir, a regional outfit that had simply nothing in common with it, and had to eventually pull out of the coalition.
In Telangana, the BJP is not a big force, and thus the TDP-Congress alliance had another purpose: To defeat the TRS. Here too, both the coalition partners shared a pathological dislike for TRS supremo K Chandhrashekhar Rao (KCR), and it was this sentiment alone that made them come together.
The second lesson is that a coalition must have commonalities in approach and ideology. The TDP had since its formation been bitterly opposed to the Congress. In fact, the rise of the TDP in Andhra Pradesh had to do with the humiliation of one of the tallest Congress leaders of the State by the Congress. NT Rama Rao had pounced upon the incident as a slight to Telugu pride, and held an arrogant New Delhi for the insult. The TDP thereafter rose from strength to strength. It was difficult for the voters to now digest that the same TDP had teamed up with the Congress.
Remember that Telugu pride is as strong a sentiment in Telangana as it is in Andhra Pradesh. Having failed in the latter, it remains to be seen whether Naidu will work on an alliance with the Congress in the coming days for Andhra Pradesh — both in the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections. The issue is even more relevant because, unlike in Telangana, the TDP is on firmer ground in Andhra Pradesh, while the Congress is a secondary player.
The third lesson lies in the art of coalition management. Neither the Congress nor the TDP could effectively handle the demands and aspirations of the two smaller regional outfits who shared the same page they did. Even in the run-up to the Assembly election in Telangana, voices of dissent were heard from leaders of these two smaller parties and it was clear that there was little coordination at the grassroots level. If the Congress could not manage a fistful of allies, how will it handle a larger coalition nationwide? As for Chandrababu Naidu, his dream of helming a national non-BJP/non-Congress coalition lies shattered after this defeat. In fact, it’s now KCR who is seeking to occupy the pole position in that regard.
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