Opinion High stakes in Hyderabad

In February,when the Centre set up the Srikrishna Committee on the Telangana issue,it was seen as a politically expedient move,one that would give the Congress enough time to make up its mind on an issue that has been festering for decades. Eleven months on,as the committee braces up to submit a report that is unlikely to come out with a single-point recommendation or solution,the ruling dispensation in New Delhi appears to be as ambivalent as ever. There was thus no attempt to rein in fasting party legislators from the region,who had chosen demand,of their own government in Hyderabad,the withdrawal of cases against students involved in last year’s agitation for a separate state. The Congress MP from Nizamabad,Madhu Goud Yaskhi,has said that Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan and Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy are “dead against Telangana”. They have obviously adopted aggressive tactics,believing their party may not be ready to bite the bullet,regardless of the panel’s recommendations. Shortly after the Congress’s plenary session in Delhi last week,which was silent on Telangana,a senior Congress functionary and Union minister who has been dabbling in Andhra affairs of late called a party MP from the Telangana region for discussion. The minister asked: “Who will benefit? KCR (K. Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi)? What will we get?” He dismissed the MP’s plea that KCR was ready to merge the TRS with the Congress. The MP then flew to Hyderabad and apprised KCR of the thinking in Delhi. The TRS chief offered to meet Sonia or Rahul Gandhi to give his word about a merger. Soon after,KCR declared publicly that he was ready to dissolve his party if a separate state of Telangana were to be created. The Congress did not take the bait. The ruling party is examining the political dividend,but the UPA government has some other concerns. A top government functionary recently told another MP from Telangana that granting statehood would mean a revival of Naxalism,and the Centre was not inclined to open a new front. These factors apart,what is also troubling the Congress leadership is the feedback from Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema that bifurcation would be tantamount to writing the party’s epitaph there,especially given the way former Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy has been gaining ground. Had the Congress sent an observer to Vijayawada during his 48-hour fast on December 21-22,they would have seen a “young man in a hurry”,celebrating his 38th birthday by fasting in front of a huge gathering of slogan-shouting young men and women who were streaming in morning and evening. Young girls and women were seen crying,jostling to touch him or tie bands on his wrists,or have him bless their babies. The Congress leaders in Delhi believe that money played a key role in mobilising crowds for Jagan’s Odarpu Yatra. He would have had to be a great producer-director-actor to stage-manage the Vijayawada show. The 300-km drive on National Highway 9 from Vijayawada to Hyderabad explains it all. Jagan has succeeded where the Congress has failed: in claiming the political legacy of the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. In trying to repudiate Jagan,the Congress also disowned YSR’s legacy — thanks also to the fact that his successor K. Rosaiah suddenly woke up to the fiscal profligacy behind YSR’s populist schemes,which he himself had sponsored as finance minister. Chances are,anyone you meet along NH 9 will be a beneficiary of one of YSR’s schemes. Dayakar from Nandigaoma village,about 70 km from Vijayawada,will tell you how his father had met with an accident and he could get treatment worth Rs 60,000 “only because of Arogyasri (the health insurance scheme)”; K. Sudhakar,a 23-year-old MBA at Cherukumupalan village,will list friends who could not have attended professional colleges without YSR’s subsidies. And there were so many of these schemes — from subsidised rice to free electricity. Just how the Congress is trying to counter the sympathy factor for Jagan was evident last Thursday when the CM declared to this newspaper,in response to a question about Jagan’s Vijayawada show,that “I can attract bigger crowds. I also had over 50,000 people in my rally.” Congressmen from the Telangana region have been trying to impress on the central leadership that the party would at least get 17 Lok Sabha seats in a new Telangana state — after the TRS’s merger with the Congress — but if it is not created,the party has to start counting its losses. While the Congress has suddenly remembered the contribution of its former prime minister,P.V. Narasimha Rao,one hopes it does not think that no decision on Telangana is also a decision. Only the Congress coming clean on this issue can end the atmosphere of uncertainty in the state.