Acid test lies before new Telangana CM

Assembly elections are over. Telangana has got a new Chief Minister and a new team of ministers. The Congress party has for a change acted in a swift manner and ensured that there were no fissures. It has taken care to talk to all the seniors and contenders for the post of Chief Minister and ensured that there was no trouble in the formation of the new government.

The presence of all top AICC leaders, Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, has sent a clear message to all the seniors that the AICC is solidly behind the new Chief Minister and that they need to show team work instead of pulling one another’s leg.

Care has also been taken in maintaining some balance regarding caste and region while selecting the first team of ministers and hopefully they will ensure that proper representation would be there instead of Reddy domination.

In undivided Andhra Pradesh and more so in the neighbouring AP, the now Reddy domination is very high both in the council of ministers as well as in other posts.

One hopes that the new government would also give necessary space to the opposition and would follow all protocols whether it is regarding the Governor or the opposition leaders. Revanth was fast enough in removing all barricades at Pragati Bhavan which was out of bounds for pink party MPs to the common man.

He also declared that it would be open to common man from Friday onwards. A new atmosphere was seen in the city particularly near Pragati Bhavan and Secretariat.

All that is fine. But then the new government should know that the road ahead is not very smooth.

It is certainly a herculean task to implement the assurances given by the Congress party. Six guarantees involve a lot of expenditure for which the government will have to struggle to mobilise the funds.

The Congress party has raised the bar of expectations to a new high particularly regarding filling up vacant jobs. It was this issue which had played key role in the victory of the Congress party.

Soon, the new government will have to present the budget. It will have to hurry up this time and complete the process of presentation of the budget and get it passed towards the end of February as the notification for Lok Sabha elections is likely in March or so.

Finding resources for the assurances given and debt servicing is going to be a major task for the government. It also remains to be seen what its liquor policy would be.

One advantage the Congress has this time here is that the BJP or the BRS cannot talk of corruption or non-performance since the new government is in its initial stage and needs to be given more time before one could judge how good or bad its performance is.

This could be an advantage for the Congress party which has lost two states in the Hindi heartland and it could get compensated by winning two states in the South – Karnataka and Telangana.

One thing the new team from Revanth down to the rank and file of Congress should understand is that they need to remain connected with the people and not live in a world of their own, A new hope has been generated that some fresh air would be felt by the people and focus should be on development of rural areas more this time.