‘Rayala’ Challenge?

In the ongoing gamble on Telangana, the Congress High Command appears to have come up with a trump card: Rayala Telangana (RT). Why ‘Rayala’ challenge now? Is it to hoodwink opponents or to finish them off? Is it the only option before the UPA government in the face of an unprecedented revolt by the Congress Chief Minister? Would the gambit pay the desired dividends? If RT materialises, it would be largely due to the bull-headed resistance offered by Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy.

The Congress leadership hopes to hit four birds with one stone. Besides Kiran Reddy, it will be K Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR) of TRS, N Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP and Y S Jaganmohan Reddy (YSJ) of the YSRCP, whose wings would be clipped by the move. In politics, things may not go as envisaged. Many twists and turns are only to be expected.

AICC General Secretaries dealing with AP have been hinting at RT for some time. The idea would be appealing to the leaders sitting in Delhi, since they are not aware of the popular sentiments of either Telangana or Rayalaseema. By opting for Rayala Telangana, the UPA would be cutting Rayalaseema and Andhra Pradesh to two equal halves - 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats each.

1) The disputes over Krishna river waters could be minimised since Srisailam project would fall in one State.

2) The power deficit in Telangana could be overcome with the help of electricity generated by hydel plants at Srisailam.

3) Hyderabad-Bangalore industrial corridor would be of national importance. It will help industrial growth in a very big way and consequently employment would be created in large numbers.

4) There won’t be any demand in future to form a separate Rayalaseema State. The people of Kurnool and Anantapur would happily agree to merge with T. Politicians might make noise.

5) The Congress may gain politically since it would come back into the reckoning with the merger of two Rayalaseema districts with T. Presently, the Congress leaders of these two Seema districts are crestfallen as there is absolutely no scope to win in Seemandhra on a Congress ticket. If Kurnool and Anantapur are clubbed with the ten districts of T, there would be euphoria in favour of the Congress. The party would be in an advantageous position in these two districts as TRS would not ask for any of the 28 seats there. The MIM might ask some seats in lieu of support. The TDP would be teaming with the BJP, and the YSRCP with the CPM.

6) If the Bill is not passed by the Assembly, President Pranab Mukherjee, a stickler for rules, may not cooperate with the government in rushing things. By winning over the MLAs from Kurnool and Anantapur, the Congress can manage to get the Bill passed in the Assembly in right royal way and defeat the game plan of Kiran Reddy.

7) The Congress hopes to make the TDP irrelevant in Telangana. Some TDP leaders are reportedly in touch with the Congress leaders. There is a feeling among them that TDP ticket is a sure way to political oblivion just like the Congress ticket in Seemandhra is highway to defeat. Naidu will have to mobilise all his forces in Seemandhra to face YSRCP which is presently going great guns, what with YSJ attracting huge crowds in Chittoor district, including Naidu’s bastion Kuppam.

Kiran Kumar Reddy, who is responsible for the desperation that forced the Congress leadership to opt for RT, will have to either fall in line or float a party of his own. Kiran Reddy has been threatening his party high command with the support of 185 MLAs from Seemandhra who are supposed to have decided to vote against the draft Bill in the Assembly. At least 28 MLAs belonging to Kurnool and Anantapur districts will be out of his kitty.

If the Bill is passed by the Assembly, the relevance of Kiran Reddy would get discounted heavily. KCR, a shrewd political gambler himself, will have to decide whether to merge his party with the Congress or go for an alliance with the BJP or to go it alone. TRS is a party that was born for the cause of T State. It fought for more than 12 years to realise the dream of separate statehood. It is identified with T sentiment. It may not have district committees or leaders all over T. But the party has sympathisers and voters.

Whichever way KCR goes, he cannot prevent the Congress from winning a simple majority in RT in 2014. The Congress would fare far better with the cooperation of the TRS. But it can manage without it. Thus RT would be a check on KCR. By taking out Kurnool and Anantapur districts from Seemandhra, the UPA government would be reducing YSJ’s catchment area to that extent. He may not get 30 Lok Sabha seats for which he has been asking the people. He will be offering serious fight, perhaps, in 30 constituencies. By limiting the scope of Naidu, YSJ, KCR and Kiran, the Congress hopes to gain politically.

1) The TRS may not agree to the proposal and might opt to remain independent without merging with the Congress. It may go to the people, complaining that the Congress which had promised a separate T State hatched a conspiracy and settled for RT. The TJAC also would find it difficult to support the Congress. It has to willy-nilly go with the TRS.

2) TRS and other parties might accuse the Congress leaders of trying to perpetuate the hegemony of Reddy politicians in Telangana by adding Kurnool and Anantapur districts which have Reddy domination. Leaders of this community from T and the two Rayalaseema districts will have a commanding position in the Congress. The second dominant community would be Madigas. They have a large presence from Anantapur to Adilabad.

3) The BJP made it clear that it would not support the move. It had accused the Congress of conspiring with the MIM in planning to carve out RT. The BJP would not support the Bill in Parliament. The UPA may succeed in getting the Bill passed in Lok Sabha without the BJP’s help. But it would be blocked in Rajya Sabha where the UPA has a combined strength of only about 85 seats in a 250-member Upper House.

4) If the Bill is not passed by the Rajya Sabha, the people of Telangana would suspect the intentions of the Congress and may not vote for it, thus defeating the very purpose of Sonia Gandhi’s T project. Seemandhra is angry with Sonia Gandhi and her party. People of Seemandhra are sure to vote for YSRCP or TDP-BJP, but certainly not Congress, as of now.

5) There will be uproar in Rayalaseema where the regional sentiment is very strong. The leaders of Rayalaseema argue that their regional identity is older than that of Telangana. They would not countenance division of their region which has its own distinct culture and traditions. YSRCP and TDP are capable of arousing passions and mobilising opposition to the move.

6) It will be hard for Telangana leaders of the Congress party to convince the people of the advantages of RT. People of T have all along been dreaming of a separate State with ten districts and Hyderabad as capital. They did not bargain for merger of two Rayalaseema districts. It will be seen as an attempt to dilute T sentiment.

Leaking the information is part of the game of testing waters. The Congress high command is credited with a view that the emotions in Rayalaseema and T would be temporary and they could be brought under control in due course. It is convinced that it would be in the larger interests of the Telugu-speaking people to get the problem of sentiments out of the way and march in the path of progress. There will be opposition and acrimony whichever way a decision is taken. It is better to make a choice that is good for the people in the long run, and face the wrath of the people now, rather than do a patchwork and rue later.

The Congress is keen not only to divide, but also to rule. If it opts for RT, it can rule there before and after the general elections due in 2014. It has to gamble on the residuary State. YSJ’s support would depend on who is going to form the government at the Centre. He would be compelled to support the coalition in power in order to wriggle out of the legal web he has been caught in.

There is no way to know if the RT is going to materialise. But it is under serious examination. The Centre can make use of this option whichever way that suits it.

Ever since the Congress Working Committee (CWC) passed a resolution, stating that Telangana would be created with ten districts and Hyderabad as joint capital, it has been caught in a logjam. A top official in the Union Home Ministry said recently that even if the GoM met for three more months, it would not be able to find a solution to Hyderabad.

The officials say it is impossible to make Hyderabad a joint capital, without making it a Union Territory (UT).

BJP, the TRS, MIM and even Congress leaders in Telangana are against making Hyderabad UT. The UPA government has to muster three-fourth majority in Lok Sabha to make Hyderabad a UT since it requires a constitutional amendment. The latest plan seems to be to divide the State into two equal parts, make Vijayawada-Guntur as capital of the residuary State of AP and forget about the idea of making Hyderabad a joint capital. That is the only way out of the impasse created by the thoughtless sentence in the CWC on the status of Hyderabad.