Video Editor: Vishal Kumar

A united Andhra Pradesh has voted for both state Assembly and the Lok Sabha at the same time — from 1999 till 2014. However, since August 2018, media reports suggested that KCR was getting ‘battle-ready’ to dissolve the Assembly and go to polls in winter 2018, along with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

So when KCR dissolved the Assembly on 6 September, his supposed ‘lucky’ date, it did not come as surprise to many. Hours after dissolving the Assembly, he released a list of 105 candidates who will fight the elections from Husnabad, the very place he launched his 2014 campaign. So, why eight months early?

REASONS FOR EARLY ELECTIONS

• For one, the TRS chief would have been in the middle of a national contest between BJP-led NDA and Congress-led Mahagatbandhan, as The News Minute points out. This would hamper the ‘Telangana-centered’ narrative that KCR and his party solely rely on.
• At the time, KCR would have also thought of the possibility of traditional rivals, the Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP), forging an unconventional alliance like the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to fight elections in the state. He did not want to give them the time to work together, an Economic Times report said.
• The report also reasoned that TRS will be in a better position to secure around 12 percent minority votes – through direct or indirect partnership with Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM if the polls are nor held simultaneously with the general elections.