Amidst election fever gripping the political parties in Telangana, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president and chief minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao ended the weeks-long suspense on Thursday afternoon on dissolving the state Assembly.At a Cabinet meeting in the afternoon, Rao, popularly known as KCR , obtained the nod of his colleagues on dissolving the Assembly and immediately reached the Raj Bhavan asking the Governor ESL Narasimhan to recommend for early polls The governor approved the decision of the Telangana cabinet and asked him to continue as caretaker chief minister till a new government is formed in the state.KCR is said to be against holding the Assembly elections with the Lok Sabha elections, which are together scheduled for around April-May 2019 in the normal course, fearing adverse effects owing to national level political alignments.While TRS was hoping that the Governor would advise KCR to continue as caretaker chief minister, the state BJP has urged the Governor to impose the President’s rule till the Assembly polls.According to senior TRS leaders, the chief minister was apprehensive that anti-incumbency alignments at the national level against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government during the Lok Sabha elections could help the Congress, the key opposition party in Telangana.Boinapply Vinod Kumar, TRS’ politburo member and deputy floor leader in Lok Sabha, confirmed the thinking in the party to go in for early polls to be clubbed with the Assembly elections being held in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram.“While the outcome of Assembly elections would depend mostly on the performance of the state government, multiple factors would play role in the Lok Sabha elections,” he told ET last week, adding that the chief minister wanted to go for polls when the feel good factor was at its peaks in the state with the recently concluded prestigious Rythu Bandhu where the government distributed Rs 4,000 an acre to every farmer.After resolving to dissolve the Assembly on Thursday morning, KCR has immediately rushed to the Raj Bhavan seeking the Governor to order early polls, preferably before December.In 2014 polls that were held immediately after Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, Rao’s TRS party rode on the formation of Telangana to win 63 out of 119 Assembly seats and 11 out of 17 Lok Sabha seats. Subsequently over the next couple of years, the ruling TRS made serious dent in the opposition by engineering relentless defections of MLAs and MPs from the Congress, Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress. While Congress saw seven of its MLAs shifting loyalties, it also lost two by-polls in favour of the ruling TRS party. TDP lost 12 of its 15 MLAs to TRS and three legislators of YSR Congress also jumped ship to TRS.Before the opposition parties in Telangana could understand his moves, KCR swiftly changed gears and decided on a whirlwind tour to cover at least 100 Assembly constituencies with large public meetings over the next 50 days, beginning with a conference at Husnabad on Friday. This comes close on the heels of a huge rally organised by the party on Hyderabad outskirts last Sunday.KCR last fortnight announced decision to declare the candidates for ensuing Assembly polls this month itself, much ahead of original schedule of April-May 2019, apart from appointing an election manifesto committee headed by the party general secretary K Kesava Rao.Beating the ruling TRS in its game, the Congress party on Wednesday announced its election manifesto with many attractive welfare schemes. It promised Rs 5 lakh to each family below the poverty line to construct a two-bedroom house. The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy promised to distribute wheat, rice sugar and kerosene through the public distribution system to SC-ST families at free of cost, apart from free domestic power supply of 200 units a month.Targeting the educated unemployed youth in Telangana, the Congress had announced to fill at least one lakh government jobs if voted to power, apart from filling another lakh jobs in the private sector. The party had also promised to offer an allowance of Rs 3,000 a month to nearly 10 lakh unemployed youth in the state.Even as Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu headed Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was in parleys with the Congress to forge an electoral pact in Telangana, KCR last Sunday gave call to people of Telangana to deny non-local parties. Reigniting the regional and Telangana sentiment, Rao urged the people to take inspiration from Tamil Nadu on regional pride and not to serve the Delhi-based political outfits.The ruling TRS Supremo sought a fresh mandate to complete the ‘unfished agenda’ of the Telangana movement in terms of Neellu, Nidhulu and Niyamakaalu (water, funds and jobs). KCR claimed to have implemented all the promises made under 2014 election manifesto and taking up fresh schemes.Rao has accused the Congress and other opposition parties for blocking developmental schemes like large-scale irrigation projects in the region.