‘Bypolls not a referendum on State government’

The coming by-elections in seven Assembly constituencies in the state cannot be viewed as a referendum on the state government’s performance, chief minister N.Kiran Kumar Reddy has said.

During an informal chat with mediapersons in his chambers in the Assembly on Monday, he asserted that the outcome of the by-elections would not have any impact on his government.

“Only general elections should be treated as a referendum on a government’s performance because people give judgment in elections after studying government’s policies and programmes over a period of five years. When Ramakrishna Hedge was chief minister of Karnataka, his party lost all the Lok Sabha seats. When Assembly elections were held a few months later, he retained power by winning a large number of Assembly seats. In 2006 TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao won the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat with a thumping majority but he lost the seat in the 2009 general election. The outcome of a byoll cannot, therefore, be an indicator of the performance of the government.’’
Replying to a question, he said no one could predict which party was going to win the by-elections in the state. No one had the capacity to read people’s mind, he said, adding that election results would depend on the worthiness of candidates and the performance of their respective parties.

Kiran Kumar Reddy said that it was not mandatory that by-elections for the 17 seats in the Assembly, which fell vacant following disqualification of pro-Jagan MLAs, be filled before the notification for the election of the President. “The Election Commission will take a call on this. The Congress high command will take a final decision on selection of candidates. I will take part in campaigning. Chiranjeevi too will campaign. He is a mega star whether in filmdom or in politics,’’ the chief minister said.