Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrashekar Rao find common cause

The common Governor of AP and Telangana, E S L Narasimhan, hosted a feast at Raj Bhavan a few days back in connection with the country’s 71st Independence Day celebrations on August 15. It goes down in the history of the two sibling states as a special event showcasing an unusual camaraderie between AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekar Rao.

Rao and Naidu are at war with each other and the clash of interests set them poles apart since the bifurcation of the state. Peace continues to elude them as they seldom find common issues to mend fences with each other.

The issue of delimiting the Assembly constituencies, at last, helped them find a common ground to hold out an olive branch. The Centre is obligated to increase the number of Assembly seats in the two successor states as part of fulfilling its commitment expressed in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.

When there appear no signs of realising the commitment even three years after the state division and it is unlikely to become a reality before the 2019 Assembly elections, the two `Chandras’ of the successor states have been left with no alternatives but to join hands.

According to media reporters, KCR was reported to have enlisted Naidu’s support to turn heat on the NDA government for achieving the common cause.

Their increasing appetite to gobble up rivals landed them in a web of in-house problems. In the process, they are beset with the nagging intra-party squabbles between old timers and turncoats in a manner that may upset their applecart in the upcoming general elections. Faced with the political expediencies, the AP CM has entertained defection of 21 MLAs from the opposition YSRC and even inducted four of them into his cabinet—N Amarnath Reddy (Chittoor district), C Adinarayana Reddy (Kadapa district), RS Ranga Rao (Vizianagaram district) and Bhuma Akhila Priya (Kurnool district). Similarly, KCR too followed the suit by allowing 24 MLAs to cross the fence in favour of his TRS from TDP, Congress, CPI and BSP.

As a result, the constituencies represented by the defectors turned into war zones with the defected MLAs and the losers of the ruling TDP or TRS in the previous elections are at logger heads. The defectors dimmed the prospects of losers in securing their party tickets in the next election.

Chandrababu and KCR have been managing to keep their flocks together with a promise for accommodation of the loyalist and defectors in the next election with the help of delimitation of Assembly seats. If delimitation becomes a reality, the Assembly seats in AP will go up by 50 from 175 and in Telangana the number will increase from 119 to 153.

The division turned the combined AP with 294 Assembly seats into two smaller states with less number of Assembly seats. The smaller the states in size, greater the risk of political instability, and hence the need for increasing the number of Assembly seats through the delimitation process, contend Naidu and KCR. In fact, it is their respective parties that are badly in need of in-house stability with delimitation as the prescription.

Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as having told him, KCR was reported to have said to AP CM over the feast at Raj Bhavan that the delimitation dream is unlikely to become a reality before the next elections.

The delimitation of Assembly seats was effected in 2009 and it cannot be redone within a span of 30 years as mandated by the Constitution. A constitutional amendment is required to let it happen earlier than the 30 years time limit. It is a laborious exercise and the numbers in the Rajya Sabha do not support the NDA to do so. This is what the reason cited by the NDA for the delay in realising the commitment.

But the regional players in the successor states contend that it could be possible even by amending the AP State Reorganisation Act. Your pain is someone’s gain. This seems to be order of the day in the present-day polity. Why should the BJP, as a political party intending to make forays into the south, relieve Naidu and KCR of their pain at its own cost? The BJP leadership in Telangana went on record with its explicit opposition to the delimitation process. It stated that the exercise will intend to only comfort turncoats and that it will in no way serve any public interest.

Naidu and KCR tend to shed their acrimonies and animosities when it comes to defending the cause of NDA, be it supporting the presidential candidate Ramnath Kovind or the Goods and Services Tax (GST). What is puzzling them is why the Centre is not reciprocating in a similar fashion.