Tough job ahead for first Chief Mininster of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao

ANDHRA PRADESH/TELANGANA: Here is a piece of news: in Telangana, which was created by Sonia Gandhi to beat the nationwide anti –incumbency effect that stared at the Congress, the tally of the grand old party is as low as that of the TDP-BJP combine. This is surprising given that TDP is seen as a Seemandhra party and was expected to find no support in Telangana. But the Modi effect has played out in Greater Hyderabad and this is the region where TDP and BJP have picked up seats.

The king of Telangana is, of course, K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR). He saw the signals early realising that allying with Congress was like opening yourself for a kiss of death. So after thanking Sonia profusely and calling her mother, he refused to do business with her. He will now be the first chief minister of Telangana, not an easy job considering that the state has little to boast off other than Hyderabad.

KCR’s challenge will be to provide confidence and keep the investment flowing into the erstwhile city of the Nizams. At the same time, he will have to work hard to develop the rest of the power and water-starved new state. Chandrababu Naidu, after ten years of wilderness, is back into power – albeit in the Seemandhra part of the truncated state of Andhra Pradesh. Since Seemandhra will be officially called Andhra Pradesh, Naidu will back to his old position.

Graph by Gramener.com




He has a bigger challenge that KCR: in the past, most of the development has taken place in Hyderabad. So he has little to bank on in Seemandhra barring its farm prosperity. Naidu is largely responsible for this: in his earlier avatar, he had focused on Hyderabad neglecting the rest of the state. “I had planned to develop Vizag after Hyderabad but I lost,” he says. Now not only Vizag, he will need a spanking new capital city. Politically also, he will not have an easy time considering that his opponent Jagan Mohan Reddy has also got enough seats in the assembly to be a formidable opposition.

But Naidu, who stays in Hyderabad, still nourishes the idea of a unified Telugu state if not anything, then as a concept.

Therefore, his TDP will continue to operate in Telangana other than Seemandhra. Naidu is part of the NDA so he will have the support of Modi, other than the fact that he has built a reputation as a liberaliser.

The real story of the partitioned Andhra Pradesh is the complete collapse of the Congress party. This is the state that kept flying the flag of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress after Emergency and helped form the Manmohan Singh government through their sure contribution of numbers. In Seemandhra, it did not get a single seat either in the assembly or Lok Sabha. Cabinet ministers like Pallam Raju got less than 20,000 seats in the Parliamentary polls! Stalwart Jaipal Reddy lost in Telangana. The BJP has actually fared better than the Congress.

Its tally of 2 Lok Sabha berths may not be impressive but with a stream of defections from the Congress, the party has started building up its foundation in Seemandhra. New entrants include ministers from Manmohan’s ministry like S Purandeswari and KS Rao. Analysts say the BJP will concentrate on building up the party in Seemandhra and Telangana—states where BJP was conspicuous by its absence till now.

The writer is resident editor, The Times of India, Hyderabad