Falling off the cycle

The Andhra Pradesh assembly results were regarded with unprecedented national attention. Whether they represent a curtain raiser to the future will have to await Thursday8217;s General Election verdict, but at the strictly regional level they indicated that there is more that unites the people of Andhra Pradesh, than divides them. The decisive manner in which the Telugu Desam Party was beaten across all the three regions of the state shows that the anti-incumbency factor played a larger role than any sentiment for or against separatism. There is no doubt that the Congress Party8217;s decision to enter into a seat-sharing agreement with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti helped it improve its tally in the Telangana region. However, the view that this would create a backlash and prompt the people of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema to unite behind N. Chandrababu Naidu proved wrong.

This display of across-the-state unity suggests that the Congress Party, with its greatly enhanced political presence, can easily retrieve the ground within Telangana by directly addressing local feelings of alienation within the framework of a united state. In other words, the Congress must dust down the six-point formula crafted by none another than Indira Gandhi in 1974 and revive the three regional development boards. It must breathe new life into panchayat raj institutions that had all but withered under the Naidu regime so that development can be fostered in the region through new institutional arrangements. What the region needs is devolution, not separation. A separate Telangana is no solution to the problems of the region nor is it in the developmental interests of Telugus as a whole.

Critics of economic reforms will hold up Naidu8217;s defeat as a vote against reforms. This is far from the truth since the Congress Party also remains committed at the national level to economic reforms. Naidu8217;s policies have been no different from those of Congress-run Karnataka. However, lessons will have to be drawn about how the benefits of growth and reform can be made available to those inhabiting the margins. Certainly, the problem of water availability for the agricultural sector loomed large in these state elections. Naidu, with his urban-centric politics, did little to address this crucial issue, especially in Telangana and Rayalaseema. Timely investment in irrigation could have have helped him beat the anti-incumbency wave that has now swept him away. The result in coastal Andhra was less about economic deprivation and more about changing power equations between the dominant castes. Altogether developmental factors, too, contributed to a convincing defeat. The Congress Party must now display the leadership qualities necessary to take Andhra Pradesh along the road to a better future.