Battle lines are drawn for the elections to the Telangana assembly scheduled to be held on December 7.
The election process will commence on Monday with the issuance of notification by the Election Commission and beginning of the nomination process.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi candidates, who have been in the field for over two months after the dissolution of the state assembly on September 6, are going all out to win their respective seats for a second term, while the opposition parties are yet to take a plunge into action.
The last date for filing of nominations is November 19, according to the schedule released by the Election Commission.
Elections will be held in a single phase on December 7 and the results would be declared on December 11.
The four opposition parties – the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party, the Telangana Jana Samithi and the CPI have ganged up to form a Maha Kootami, but are still struggling to seal the seat sharing deal.
The Congress has left 25 seats for its alliance partners - 14 to the TDP, eight to the TJS and three seats to the CPI.
The TJS is in talks with the Congress, pushing for giving it the constituencies of its choice, while the CPI is demanding that it be given five segments.
In the 2014 assembly election, the TRS bagged 63 seats with a vote-share of 34 per cent and the Congress 21 seats with 25 per cent vote-share.
The TDP had fought the poll then in alliance with the BJP. TDP won 15 seats with 14.5 per cent vote-share and the BJP five with seven per cent vote-share.
The last few weeks have been seen war of words between the TRS and Congress as the parties hit early campaign trail.
The TRS has termed the Congress-led alliance opportunistic and, in particular, launched sharp verbal attacks on Chandrababu Naidu accusing him of putting urdles in Telangana's development.
The BJP has teamed up with the Yuva Telangana Party, but practically it is going it alone in majority of the constituencies apparently to assess its actual strength on the ground.
