KCR EYES THIRD TERM, CONGRESS KEEN TO WREST POWER

As campaigning for election in Telangana entered the last 24 hours on Monday the key parties, including the ruling BRS, put in all their resources to attract voters with promises ranging from welfare schemes that include farm loan waivers, higher pensions, loans for backward classes and more government jobs.

- RAHUL CHHABRA

Voting on Thursday would mark the culmination of balloting process in five states whose result will be declared on 3 December, setting the tone for fresh strategies and realignments for the 2024 Lok Sabha.

The result on 3 December will also determine the path that K Chandrasekhar Rao controlled BRS shall play in an anti-BJP grouping. If KCR decides to focus on national politics in 2024, his son K T Rama Rao is expected to handle affairs in the state.

With the election in Telangana being a direct fight between the ruling BRS and the Congress, the BJP, as the third player, is seeing itself in a position to disturb the apple cart of both the main rivals.

The BJP's vote share has been on the rise in the state from 6.98 per cent in the 2018 assembly election to 19.65 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The more the number of seats that the BJP manages to win in the current election, the more the chance of the contest yielding a hung assembly.

The BJP had won just one seat in Telangana assembly in 2018 but since then it has managed to spread its network in the state. The BJP won four Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2019.