Achhe Din chorus spells electoral gains for TRS

Politics in South is different from North. The formulas applied in North will not succeed in South. While it is caste that plays a predominant role in North, down South people look at what the government of the day has done for them and to what extent the schemes it has doled out have reached the people. If they feel that people have been cheated, howsoever strong the ruling party might be, they will have to bite the dust.

This is the gist of the ‘sermons’ ostensibly delivered by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to his party men after the public meeting held at Warangal. He has reportedly made it plain and clear that even top leaders, including his Cabinet colleagues and MPs, should make comments on any issue only after getting his go-ahead. It takes one back to the days when Indira Gandhi and J Jayalalithaa established their stranglehold over party affairs in, more or less, a similar fashion.

The TRS boss seems to have driven over the fact that Telangana voters were mature and smart enough to not get swayed by orchestrated emotions like in some of the neighbouring states. While community-based schemes like sheep-rearing, and those for fishermen and Nayi Brahmins would help the government in winning over a majority of sections, the sops he had announced for farmers like Rs 4000 each for Kharif and Rabi, creating crop colonies and constituting farmers federations from village level to state level would help to make agriculture a profitable profession.

Moreover, minus the apparent bottlenecks, the self-governed federations could eliminate middlemen and ensure better remunerative prices for the farming lot. They can also go a long way in substantially reducing farmer suicides in the state. Similarly, if the government can convince the farm community that the TRS government-inspired ‘Achhe Din’ would remove the last trace of the harrowingly suicidal times they faced during the undivided Andhra Pradesh days, then there is a distinct possibility of sustaining and consolidating the unequivocal trust of the entire farming sector.

Translated into a reality, this could actually spell electoral ‘Achhe Din’ for the TRS given the massive agricultural populace across the State.
Since there is a strong feeling in political circles that general elections may be advanced by six months, the opposition is trying to spread word that the ruling party in Telangana State has been indulging in self-glorification and media blitzkrieg, such as rebuilding of tank network and focus on irrigation projects while the reality is that the past continues to shame the agricultural sector, due to various corresponding factors like inadequate rainfall, dramatic climatic upheavals, increase in the cost of cultivations and lack of irrigation facilities and meagre remunerative prices.

These apart, the opposition is drumming up chorus on the State’s dubious distinction of being second in the number suicides committed in the country. Farmer suicides were attributed to a number of reasons ranging from crop failure to debts. The State Government failed to provide crop insurance at par with what is available in industry, as agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. Crop failure is attributed for the spate of farmer suicides in the State.

The TRS, KCR feels, should convert this adversity into an opportunity. The biggest advantage the party has is that the opposition is fragmented. There are only two parties Congress and BJP which can give some fight in a maximum of 40 Assembly constituencies. Hence, if the TRS government can effectively implement the new farm policies it has firmed up and implement community-based schemes, even if there is some shortfall in two bed room scheme, the ruling party can romp home without much of a fight, is the reading in the TRS camp.

But then while the officials will have to put in extra efforts to honour the promises, the party rank and file should also go into aggressive campaign mode to reach out to every nook and corner of the state and tell the people of what the government was doing for them and how it would help them grow.

By V RAMU SARMA