Elections to Telangana’s 119-member Assembly are all set to take place on 30 November. While incumbent chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao will be contesting for a third term, his party Bharat Rashtra Samithi or BRS (formerly Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS) is facing stiff competition from the Congress and, in some pockets, the BJP.
Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM will also be contesting from nine seats.
In the run up to the hotly-contested polls, KCR’s party announced several sops for several sections of its populace on 16 October. These included increasing the Aasara monthly pension for senior citizens, widows, beedi workers, filaria victims, single women, and handloom weavers from the existing Rs 2,016 to Rs 6,000 per month in the next five years. The BRS also promised to increase the Rythu Bandhu farm investment support from the current Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 per acre per farmer and gradually increase it to Rs 16,000 per acre per farmer.
The doles released by the BRS government were an apparent counter to the six guarantees of the Congress, which included financial incentives and assistance for women, farmers, auto rickshaw drivers, mid-day meal workers, as well as social security for the unorganised sector on the lines of the Rajasthan government’s bill for gig workers.
Meanwhile, the BJP has promised free desi cows, a committee to implement the Uniform Civil Code within six months, state government recruitment exams to be conducted every six months and 10 lakh jobs for women.
For the first time, women voters (1,63,01,705) in Telangana have outnumbered male voters (1,62,98,418), as per the final electoral list. But will jobs and unemployment be a poll issue this election season? Let’s find out: