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The problem that refuses to go away

S. Nagesh Kumar

The issue of a separate Telangana is once again dominating the political discourse in Andhra Pradesh? Will a solution ever come?

THE ISSUE of a separate Telangana has again come to centre stage in Andhra Pradesh politics. Recently, BJP president Rajnath Singh said his party would support a Bill on Telangana provided the Congress tabled it in Parliament.

For Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the renewed wrangling could not have come at a more inopportune time — when he is aggressively wooing investors to park their funds in the State. At a platform of prospective investors in Bangalore he declared that Andhra Pradesh would remain united and that the prospects of the formation of Telangana were "not bright." This should help cool temperatures.

The chairman of the UPA sub-committee on Telangana, Pranab Mukherjee, seemed to have put paid to hopes of an early solution through his statement during the 82nd AICC plenary in Hyderabad that the issue, hanging fire since 1956, was not simple to resolve.

In October 2000, the Congress Working Committee felt there were valid reasons for creating the States of Telangana and Vidharbha. However, that could lead to a demand for constituting a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC).

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), in the forefront of the struggle for a separate State, is opposed to a second SRC. It has threatened to pull out both its representatives from the Union Cabinet if there is no concrete commitment on the issue by May 10. Party chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao has vowednot tovisit Hyderabad until the State is created.

The BJP rejected Mr. Mukherjee's statement that it had not proffered its opinion on Telangana. Firstly, it said, the party had received no communication from Mr. Mukherjee. Secondly, it said, the UPA sub-committee on Telangana had no official sanctity and so the BJP was not obliged to reply.. From 1998 when its State unit passed a resolution in Kakinada backing a separate State till now, the BJP has been ambivalent on Telangana. The BJP, a part of the National Democratic Alliance that took the initiative in creating Uttaranchal, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh, has kept its resolution on Telangana in cold storage for eight years. Now, it has de-frosted the resolution — evidently to end its isolation after being dumped by the TDP following the 2004 electoral debacle. Mr. Rajnath Singh admitted that the BJP did not espouse the Telangana cause since the TDP was opposed to it. This has given new hope to the TRS which has begun knocking on the Congress doors while keeping its options open for a tie-up with the BJP.

The Congress, ever dichotomous on Telangana, has not come out with a forthright stand. This is perhaps part of a game plan to keep the TRS guessing. The Telangana Regional Congress Coordination Committee, headed by K. Keshava Rao who is also the State unit chief, is all for a separate Telangana. Yet this avoids making common cause with the TRS or other parties on any issue concerning Telangana.

The TRS president refused to fight the 2005 municipal elections in alliance with the Congress and received a severe drubbing. Now, with the panchayat polls approaching and under pressure from his partymen, he is trying to build bridges with the Congress. The Congress is also playing along lest the TRS goes with the BJP. At the instance of the AICC, which does not want smaller parties in the UPA to part ways, the State Congress chief is holding parleys with Mr. Chandrasekhara Rao. Quite a turnaround for the two parties which were at each other's throats after the TRS Ministers quit the State Cabinet last year.

Long history

Since the separatist agitation in 1969, the Telangana issue has come in handy for politicians to stage comebacks or float new parties. In the 1971 mid-term elections, the Telangana Praja Samiti emerged as a credible alternative to the Congress, winning 10 of the 16 seats in the region. Before long, the Samiti merged with the Congress and in 1978 its prime moving force, M. Channa Reddy, became Chief Minister. Those were the days of high emotion and the yearning of the people of Telangana to break free of the domination of the State's other regions and get their due share of economic prosperity was genuine.

Twenty-five years later, Mr. Chandrasekhara Rao broke away from the Telugu Desam and formed the TRS. He won 26 Assembly and five Lok Sabha seats. Unlike in 1971 when separatism was a live issue, the issues were different in 2004. The Congress generously allotted 45 Assembly seats to the TRS and the anti-TDP sentiment among the voters helped. A year later, however, the TRS received a severe drubbing.

At the core of the entire issue is the region's backwardness. Successive Governments have not addressed it adequately. The Krishna and the Godavari rivers cut across the region but, barring a few pockets, the farmers depend largely on the monsoon. The present Government has taken up a string of irrigation projects such as Sripadasagar but most of the projects have been affected by controversy over alleged corruption in the tender process.

Indira Gandhi balanced the conflicting demands of the Telangana and Andhra regions by evolving a six-point formula and later issuing a Presidential Order in 1975 to safeguard Telangana's interests in employment and education. In the last three decades, the Presidential Order has been violated many times. As a result, hundreds of employees from coastal Andhra and other parts of Telangana are now working in Hyderabad. Some of these violations are now being rectified beginning with the transfer of 3,000 policemen out of Hyderabad amid protests by Congress MLAs from the Andhra region.

Will a separate State become a reality? Going by the statements of Congressmen, the answer lies with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. A false move could prove hazardous. In arriving at a decision, Ms. Gandhi will have only the versions of political parties but no authentic record of the people's pulse as it has not really been measured in the recent past.

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