Post-bifurcation, Telangana Rashtra Samiti puts other parties out of game

Hyderabad: After the bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh, and the dominance of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), important political parties are disappearing from the political stage in Telangana state.

The Left parties have no representation in the 119-member Legislative Assembly. The Telugu Desam, which is in power in Andhra Pradesh, has almost disappeared in TS.

Neither the Left parties nor the TD are represented in the Telangana Legislative Council.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not much better off and the Congress is heading in the same direction.

In the 2014 Assembly elections, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party Marxist (CPM) won one seat each. The lone CPI MLA joined the TRS later. In the recent TS Assembly elections, neither of the two Left parties could win a single seat. CPI national secretary K. Narayana commented that the CPI got fewer votes than the number of the party membership, and if the situation does not improve, there will be just himself and one or two other leaders.

Before the bifurcation, Left parties were strong in Nalgonda, Khammam and some parts of other districts. Today, they have no representation in either the Assembly or the Council. The bifurcation affected the fortunes of the TD, too. In the combined AP, the Telugu Desam was stronger in the Telangana region than the Andhra region.