The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Telugu Desam bids adieu to N.T. Rama Rao’s legacy

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Telugu Desam bids adieu to N.T. Rama Rao’s legacy

S. Nagesh Kumar

Volte face borne out of historic necessity, says Naidu

HYDERABAD: By going back on its time-tested stand on Telangana, the Telugu Desam Party has knocked down an important pillar, perhaps the last, on which N. T. Rama Rao founded the organisation in 1982. Others such as distribution of rice to the poor at Rs. 2 a kilo and total prohibition were brought down 13 years ago after the charismatic NTR was unseated in 1995.

Mr. Naidu acknowledged the epochal character of his ‘Dasara gift’ to Telangana by suggesting that his volte face was borne out of the ‘historic necessity” of keeping in tune with the changing political times. But history has beckoned Mr. Naidu a full seven years after K. Chandrasekhar Rao launched the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in 2001 to fight for a separate State after breaking away from the Telugu Desam.

A peep into recent history will also reveals that an indispensible condition for the TDP coming into existence, according to NTR, was to uphold the self-respect of the Telugus who lacked an independent identity and were dubbed by the general epithet ‘madrasis’ and, more importantly, to work for the unity and integrity of all Telugus under every circumstance. This underpinning ideology has now been discarded.

As Mr. Naidu pointed out, the Congress party had gotten away with stoking fires of separatism in Telangana in 1969, in Andhra in 1972-73, in Rayalaseema under YSR’s leadership later and, lastly, joined hands with the TRS in 2004 on the plank of working for separate statehood for Telangana. Yet, it did nothing for the development of backward regions whose cause it was supposed to be championing.

Political ploy

This logic can be interpreted to mean that the Telugu Desam could also get away with a similar tactic of supporting separatism but not giving away anything when it comes to the crunch. Whether this political ploy will pay dividends or rebound remains to be seen because the TDP is also vulnerable to an identical charge. It has held power for all but nine-and-a-half years since 1983, a political watershed against which all comparisons are nowadays drawn.

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