While it won’t be the formal declaration that will form the state, will the Congress finally bite the bullet and approve the formation of Telangana today?
If reports are to be believed, Congress president Sonia Gandhi had made up her mind on 26 July after meeting with Andhra Pradesh MLAs and Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy. The Congress Working Committee deciding to to endorse the creation of the new state will be little beyond the rubber stamp of approval to a plan that will join many other policies and decisions in a political limbo for which there is no quick solution.
Announcing the creation of the state only sets in motion a long process that needn’t culminate anytime soon.
The decision by the all powerful Congress Working Committee will first put the ball in the court of the Union Cabinet. After cabinet clearance, it will go to a Group of Ministers who will clear the law. But the legislation to create a new state will have to be taken up by the Cabinet again.
And it doesn’t end there.
Once cabinet agrees on a legislation, the bill goes to the President. It then goes to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, where whether approved or not, it goes back to the government and then possibly to Parliament.
Under a proposed blueprint for the new state, the plan is to add the two districts of Anantapur and Kurnool to the new state of Telangana, which would evenly split the number of seats contributed by the two states to the Centre at 21 seats each.
This move is expected to nip the fledgling, but ominously rapid, growth of YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy before he grows beyond the Rayalaseema region into other regions of the state.
It is also expected to help keep K Chandrasekhar Rao from controlling the new state completely and would make Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party incapable of coming to power in either of the states, despite his recent statewide trek to hold on to a shrinking voter base.
As it would allow the Congress to get the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) on its side with the formation of the new state. It would also hope to get TRS’ KC Rao back into its fold.
However, splitting Rayalaseema may seem easy in practice but it hasn’t been done since the 1600s. Local leaders have already promised a ‘bloodbath’ and started their own campaign for a separate state for the region. But the Congress has also reportedly dug in its heels and told the TRS and others pro-Telangana groups that they can either accept the new state with the additional districts or settle for nothing at all.
But why bother with a decision at all? A glimpse into the findings of the recent poll survey, conducted by CSDS, throws up some clues. In Telangana, barely 8 percent of the population wants the state to stay united while 61 percent want the formation of a new state. Given the strong polarisation that exists between the coastal and Telangana region over the issue, procastinating over the decision is perhaps the worst decision the Congress could take, one that would yield the least dividends in a polarised state.
“The people of Telangana do not have faith in the Congress. What the party intends to do is take credit politically without giving much thought to the sentiments of the people,” M Kodandaram, chairman of the Telangana Political Joint Action Committee, told Rediff in an interview yesterday. Kodandaram says they will oppose the current plan for a new state as well as sharing Hyderabad with the other half of Andhra Pradesh.
Given that neither side will yield in their opposition, the safest thing for the Congress is to declare the formation of the state and if its fails to come through let those who opposed it take the blame. It gives the party the opportunity to walk away with the credit of taking a decision and the hope that it may yield dividends in the next general elections.
If Kiran Kumar Reddy and his ministers were serious about their threat to resign over the formation of the new state, they’d best also have a plan for what they plan to do once out of their seats of power.
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