TRS gains, Telangana loses

Notwithstanding the fact that it enjoys comfortable support in the legislature and among the electorate, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) continues with the strategy of encouraging defections in a blatant manner, laying to rest all the pretensions to a movement party. Of course, the TRS supremo himself has declared that his party has undergone a metamorphosis to become a ‘true’ political party.

But, the political mathematics behind it is curious. The TRS had a slender margin in the state Assembly. Fear of possible poaching by the opposition could possibly have prompted K Chandrashekar Rao to hatch a strategy that had clinical precision and could bolster his, and thereupon the party’s, position.

Having experienced many internal upheavals due to political defections in his long innings as the architect of the final phase of Telangana movement, KCR resorting to such a pro-active strategy has evoked sympathy from the self-styled pragmatic political observers.

But, as the unabated defections into the ruling party continue, Telangana polity presents an ugly spectacle. This unabashed operation is a frantic bid to obliterate the opposition. Cashing in on political sentiments might have fetched electoral dividends, but such a process goes contrary to the spirit of a democratic Telangana.

The TRS apologetics may call it a political realignment for unveiling ‘Bangaru Telangana,’ but the prevailing political culture, in fact, defeats the very purpose for which a separate State was demanded, and created. The people of Telangana wanted a reinvented Telangana, which could happen only after breaking away from the notorious ayarams, gayarams political legacy of earlier times.

The TRS drove to power on sentiment-driven political support. Unfortunately, it lacks organisational base, which makes it vulnerable. Instead of making a consummate effort to build a grassroots organisation, the TRS prefers to depend on political imports. This may work out very well, albeit till the honeymoon period lasts with the masses.

But, over dependence on such imported leaders makes the party seriously vulnerable at some point of time. After all, politics makes for strange bedfellows. Irrespective of whether it is Congress or TDP leaders, the TRS has kept its doors open to anyone and everyone. Even those who have let loose a reign of terror on the activists of Telangana movement could reincarnate themselves by taking a cleansing dip in TRS.

Such blatantly corrupt rehabilitation cannot deliver a clean administration, leave alone a golden Telangana. The unabashed political defections undermine democratic polity and increase peoples’ disenchantment with the political system.

With GHMC polls round the corner, the political management is inching towards the zenith. The TRS, which once kept away from contesting fearing a washout, is now moving heaven and earth to hold sway in the civic body.

With an unprecedented people’s mandate, a charismatic leadership and a dissipated opposition, the TRS should have rung in a new brand of political culture as a measure of alternative political governance. But the party is squandering away a historic opportunity.