Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday launched a blistering attack on B Kodandaram, his comrade in the days of statehood struggle who has turned a critic of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government of late, calling Kodandaram a “political bimaru” who is a misfit in Telangana. This comes on a day the TRS-backed Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangham (TBGKS) won the prestigious trade union elections for Singareni Collieries Company Limited. The results, declared in the early hours of Friday, saw TGBKS poll 23,938 of the total 52,534 votes. The opposition alliance, which comprised trade union wings of the Congress, CPI, TDP, CPI(M) and the BJP, polled 19,939 votes. The union election was seen as a prestige battle for Rao after Kodandaram, a professor of Political Science at Hyderabad’s Osmania University and chairman of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC), which had played a key role in Telangana’s statehood struggle, got together the entire opposition to wean away the union from TBGKS. The Singareni mines are spread across six districts, and 20 Assembly constituencies, of Telangana, and the union election was being seen as a means to check the public mood less than two years before the state goes to the polls. On Friday, Rao said, “Who is Kodandaram? What is he? Has he ever won a sarpanch election? He is hobnobbing with the Congress and other parties, and misleading everyone. He is commenting and opposing every good thing the government is doing.” Pointing out that Kodandaram is “appealing (coal workers, in this case) to defeat TRS,” Rao said, “I do not understand what his problem is. He did not like it when the TRS came to power in 2014, now he is talking utter nonsense.” Rao is said to be especially displeased with Kodandaram after he launched the Telangana Amarula Spoorthi Yatra (Telangana Martyrs Inspiration Tour), as the suicides of many youths during the statehood agitation is a sensitive issue in the state. “Kodandaram has launched a yatra for martyrs. Will even 500 people come to his yatra,” the chief minister had remarked last week, in the build-up to the Singareni Collieries union polls. “Did he bother about the martyrs before? Did he meet the mother of the first martyr, Srikant Chary?” Kodandaram was considered a protege of Rao but the professor, highly regarded in OU and academic circles, has since turned a bitter critic of the TRS government. He accused the TRS of betraying the people’s dreams in the three years since it assumed power and failing to keep its pre-election promises. “The TRS government has failed to meet the expectations of the people.the unemployed youth, farmers, and socially and economically backward classes. Is this is the Telangana the people fought for, and sacrificed lives for? What happened to (TRS’s) promises of giving two-bedroom houses to BPL families?” Kodandaram is seen as having played a big role in mobilising students across the region during the statehood movement. The non-political TJAC also played a key role in bringing together people from across Telangana to join the agitation. Reacting to Rao’s accusations, Kodandaram on Friday said, “I am a stranger.a nobody? It does not matter. I will continue to raise my voice until the Telangana we fought for is a reality.”
