TRS will not contest GHMC elections: KCR

Express News Service: 06 Nov 2009

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has, as expected, announced that it will not contest the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

Addressing a news conference here today, party chief K Chandrasekhara Rao said that as these elections were not important, the party decided to keep away from the elections.

“The GHMC elections do not merit the party’s attention. Fighting them is nothing but indulging in cheap politics,’’ Rao said.

Instead, his party was making an elaborate plan for the indefinite fast to be launched by him in the last week of this month at Siddipet, he said. He had already asked the people of Telangana region to be prepared either to participate in the victory celebrations following the formation Telangana state or his funeral procession.

As part of intensifying the agitation for separate state, Chandrasekhar Rao said he would submit memoranda to all constitutional heads _ President, Governor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition LK Advani, and presidents of all political parties.

“Since we have a much larger agenda like attainment of a separate Telangana we have decided not to participate in the GHMC polls which is a minor issue having no great consequence,’’ he pointed out.

The TRS leader said that all Telangana employees’ associations decided to take part in the `pendown strike’ and it was an indication that the movement would pick up momentum as happened in 1969.

Rao said he would meet Governor ND Tiwari and Chief Minister K Rosaiah tomorrow. He would also visit Delhi for two days from November 9 to submit memoranda to President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha LK Advani. During the two day-visit, Rao would also meet heads of all political parties and many Central ministers.

The TRS leader hoped that both the Central Government and the political system in the country would respect the democratic right of the Telangana people. If they did not react positively, they would be held responsible for the consequences, he warned.

The TRS will organise 15,000 public meetings under the supervision of an 11-member delegation from November 6 to 11 across the region to prepare the people and enlist their support to Chandrasekhar Rao’s proposed ‘indefinite fast.’ The Telangana Rashtra Samithi Vidyardhi Union (TRSVU) will organise nearly 3,500 gate meetings at all Intermediate, degree and other professional colleges and other educational institutions in the region.

About 25 leaders will conduct Assembly constituency wise party workers meeting for three days from November 7.

According to the Telangana Vidyavantula Vedika (TVV), Telangana freedom fighters, Telangana writers associations and cultural troupes will also take up several mass contact programmes in the region. Sixty-eight bar associations will also take part in the programme.

Chandrasekhar Rao demanded that all the political parties should make their stand clear on the Telangana issue.

He alleged that the main Opposition party, Telugu Desam, had changed its earlier stand on Telangana issue. He asserted that his party was different from other parties and hence decided not to contest the GHMC elections.

Source: http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=TRS+will+not+contest+GHMC+elections:+KCR&artid=Rz|WCrx3H8c=&SectionID=e7uPP4|pSiw=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=EH8HilNJ2uYAot5nzqumeA==&SEO=

TRS disinclined to contest GHMC polls
Special Correspondent, The Hindu, 31 Oct 2009

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has said that it was disinclined to contest Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections but a final view in the matter would be taken at its State executive meeting on Monday.

Briefing reporters after a meeting of the Polit Bureau which discussed the issue on Friday, TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao said most of the Polit Bureau members were unanimous that the party should not enter the polls. However, a couple of them from Hyderabad felt the need to give their followers an opportunity to face elections.

The party would consult its Hyderabad-based leaders and different organisations in the next two days and leave the final decision to the State executive which will declare its stand in the form of a resolution.

The party also bought time to make up a decision because the High Court was expected to deliver its judgment on staying of elections on Monday, Mr. Rao said.

The TRS president allayed apprehensions of the cadre about delay in the event of the party deciding to enter elections as they would still have three more days to file nominations.

He condemned the hasty step of the State Election Commission in issuing the election notification though the Supreme Court had clarified that the election process was subject to the final order of the High Court.

However, the matter was still pending in the High Court. He also found fault with the SEC in inviting political parties for consultations after the notification was issued.
Misdeeds

The elections were a conspiracy to divert the attention of people from large scale land transactions by government.

The party was more interested in exposing the misdeeds of the government than contesting elections, he added.

source: http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/31/stories/2009103155910100.htm

TRS finds alibi to skip polls

October 31, 2009 Deccan Chronicle
By Our Correspondent

Hyderabad, Oct. 30: A nervous Telangana Rashtra Samithi is likely to skip the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls despite demanding that the capital city should be part of a separate Telangana state.

The TRS, which also took up the issue of police recruitment in Hyderabad in real earnest recently, is using the indefensible pretext of intensifying the Telangana struggle for not contesting the GHMC polls. Political observers see it is a face saving gesture.
It is learnt that the TRS, which is essentially a rural party, is worried about how the urban voter would react to its recent slogans.

Initially, the party planned to go it alone and contest 100-odd seats with focus on 25 to 30 seats in its strongholds.

However, there were serious apprehensions among some senior leaders that the party might face a drubbing in the cosmopolitan city which would dent its image further. It has barely recovered from the poor show in the recent Assembly polls.

This decision is likely to disappoint TRS leaders and cadre and will also evoke criticism from advocates of united Andhra Pradesh.

The TRS politburo, which met under the chairmanship of the party president, Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao, here on Friday, felt the party should stay away from GHMC polls and instead prepare for the Telangana struggle.

The TRS Hyderabad city president, Mr T. Padma Rao and senior party leader, Mr Nayani Narasimha Reddy, were keen to fight the elections to keep up the morale of city leaders and cadre, but Mr Chandrasekhar Rao dissuaded them by saying that 95 per cent of the politburo members were opposed to the TRS contesting the polls.

He also said it would take away the focus from his ‘fast unto death’ programme from the last week of November if there was no favourable response from State and Central governments on their demand for carving out a separate State.

Mr Chandrasekhar Rao, however, added that the final decision on the GHMC polls would be taken at the party’s executive committee on Monday after getting feedback from the city leaders and cadre. “For us the struggle for separate Telangana is more important than polls,” he said.

At the same time, he also criticised the State Election Commission for announcing poll dates unilaterally without consulting political parties as is the norm.

Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/trs-finds-alibi-skip-polls-568

State Committee meeting of TRS to decide on GHMC polls
Hyderabad | Friday, Oct 30 2009 IST

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) President K Chandrasekhra Rao today said the party would take a decision whether to contest or not in the coming local body elections for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) at the state committee meeting on November 2.

Addressing media persons after the politburo meeting of the party, he said 95 per cent of the members expressed their opinion not to take part in the elections while the rest were in favour of contesting the polls.

The matter would be decided after discussing with the members at the state committee meeting on Monday. The party would also discuss with the Telangana Government Employees Associations, Students organisations and others on the issue before taking a final decision, he informed.

Stating that the State Election Commission (SEC) had issued notification for the GHMC elections without holding a meeting of leaders of all political parties, Mr Rao said the notification issued by the SEC was ‘undemocratic.’ The TRS would intensify its agitation to achieve separate Telangana and organise stirs against land grabbers in Telangana region, he said.

(UNI) — 30MS38.xml
http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20091030/1373084.html

Editorial- The Hindu

Journalism for sale

India’s elections, which in mid-2009 brought 415 million voters to the 1.18 million ballot units in 834,944 polling stations and were mostly peaceful, may be one of the wonders of the world. But it is widely understood that in 2009 the free, fair, and democratic attributes of these elections have been compromised as never before by the large-scale, illegal, and scandalous use of money power — which, to a considerable extent, involved recycled dirty money garnered through corruption in executive and legislative office. The role of the Election Commission of India in curbing booth capturing, intimidation of voters, and some other kinds of electoral fraud has won public appreciation. But as P. Sainath points out in his article, “The medium, message and the money,” published in The Hindu on October 26, 2009, “it is hard to find a single instance of rigorous or deterrent action” by the ECI in the face of such a serious danger to the democratic process. That is a large question that needs to be addressed in depth and in all its complexity by the various players in the political system.

The new shame is the extensive and brazen participation of not insignificant sections of the news media, notably large-circulation Indian language newspapers in two of India’s largest States, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, in this genre of corruption — which a politician speaking at a Hyderabad media seminar memorably characterised as a “Cash Transfer Scheme” from politicians to journalists. Sainath’s article exposes the phenomenon of “coverage packages” exploding across India’s most industrialised State during the recent Assembly election.

Candidates paid newspapers different rates for well-differentiated and streamlined packages of news coverage. Those who could not or would not pay for the packages tended to be blacked out. The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists has, on the basis of a sample survey conducted in West Godavari district, estimated that newspapers across the State netted Rs. 350 crore to Rs. 400 crore through editorial coverage sold to candidates during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Some candidates even recorded the expenditure incurred in purchasing editorial coverage in their official accounts submitted to the ECI. With some senior journalists drawing its attention to this new-fangled cash transfer scheme in Andhra Pradesh, the Press Council of India has constituted a two-member committee to inquire into the matter. What to do about such a shocking breach of readers’ trust (which is unlikely to be confined to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) by the so-called Fourth Estate will form the subject of a follow-up editorial.

Source: The Hindu, 30 October 2009 http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article41149.ece

భయాంధ్రప్రదేశ్‌!

-కె.బాలగోపాల్‌
భయం నుంచి బయటపడి ధైర్యంగా ఆత్మస్థైర్యంతో మాట్లాడేటటువంటి ఆ ప్రజాస్వామిక విలువను కాపాడుకోవటం కూడా చాలా ముఖ్యమైన పనైపోయింది ఇవ్వాళ మన ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్‌లో. ఆత్మ స్థైర్యం, ధైర్యం, నిర్భీతి, ఈ ప్రజాస్వామిక విలువలు లేకపోతే హక్కులసాధన అయ్యేపనికాదు, ఇవి లేకపోతే మనం హక్కుల కోసం కొట్లాడట మనేది సాధ్యమయ్యేపనికాదు. అది చెప్పటం అవసరమని నేననుకుంటున్నాను.

సమాజం భయపడుతూ ఉంటే, నిజం చెప్పటానికి భయపడుతూంటే, అబద్ధాన్ని అబద్ధం అనడానికి భయపడు తూ ఉంటే ఏ హక్కులు సాధించుకుంటాం? దళితులు గానివ్వండి, కార్మికులు గానివ్వండి, ఉద్యోగులు గానివ్వండి, ఎవరైనా గానివ్వండి, సత్యాన్ని సత్యం అనగలగాల, అసత్యాన్ని అసత్యం అనగలగాల, నాకిది న్యాయమూ అని నిర్భయంగా చెప్పగలగాల.

అది సాధ్యం గాని చోట హక్కులు అనే మాటకు అర్థం ఉండదు. ఈ రాష్ట్రాన్ని భయం ఏలుతూ ఉంది. ఆ భయం నుంచి ఈ రాష్ట్రం బయటపడలేదు అని – పడింది అని ఒకవేళ అనుకున్నా ఎప్పుడైనా- రాజశేఖరరెడ్డి మరణం తరువాత జరుగుతున్నటువంటి పరిణామాలు స్పష్టం చేస్తా వున్నాయి.
ముఖ్యమంత్రిగా ప్రమాణ స్వీకారం చేసిన వ్యక్తి తన కుర్చీలో కూర్చోలేడు. ధైర్యం చాలడం లేదు.. తన తోటి మంత్రులు పని చెయ్యకపోతే, ఎందుకు పని చేయడం లేదు అని వాళ్ళనడగకుండా, ‘ఏం? మంత్రి ప్రతిరోజూ సంతకం చేయాలా సెక్రటేరియట్‌లో కూర్చోని?’ అని వాళ్ళ తరఫున ఆయనే జవాబు చెప్తున్నాడు. అడగటానికి ఆయనకు భయం. రాజశేఖరరెడ్డి చనిపోయినాక రాష్ట్రంలో ఎవరో అన్నారంట, ప్రతి పెద్ద ఆస్పత్రిలోను కూడ రోజుకో ఇరవై అయిదు ముప్పై అయిదు మంది గుండెపోటుతో వస్తుంటారు, పోతుంటారు, కొందరు మళ్ళీ ఇంటికి పోతుంటారు అని.

ఇవ్వన్నీ గూడా ఆ చావుకు సంబంధించిన మరణాలే అని బుకాయించారని ఒక ఆంగ్ల పత్రికలో ఆంగ్ల మీడియా చెప్పవలసివచ్చింది. మనకు« ధైర్యం చాలడం లేదు. ఇక్కడ మీడియాకు ధైర్యం చాలడం లేదు. ఇక్కడ వ్యాఖ్యాతలకు ధైర్యం చాలడంలేదు. అన్నిటినీ తీవ్రంగా విమర్శించే వ్యాఖ్యాతలుగా టివిలో కనిపించినటువంటి మహానుభావులు, పేర్లు చెప్పొద్దు, బాగుండదు, వాళ్ళకి సాధ్యం కాదు.

ఎటువంటి సమాజంలో జీవిస్తున్నాం మనం? ఈ సాధ్యం కాకపోవడం, నిజాన్ని నిజం అనలేకపోవడం, కొందరిలో భయం కావచ్చు, కొందరిలో అవకాశవాదం కావచ్చు, రెండూ కూడా ప్రజాస్వామ్యానికి వినాశకరమే, ఎందుకంటే, నిజాయితీ లేకపోతే, భయం ఉన్నా నిజాయితీ ఉండదు, అవకాశమున్నా నిజాయితీ ఉండదు, నిజాయితీ లేకపోతే ప్రజాస్వామ్యముండదు.హక్కుల సాధన సాధ్యం కాదు. హక్కులు సాధించుకోవడం సాధ్యంకాదు, ఇటువంటి సమాజంలో బ్రతుకుతున్నాం మనమూ అనే ఓ సిగ్గుపడే పరిస్థితి, బుర్ర రాములు అననే అన్నాడు. మనకు వాస్తవానికి ఉంది నెలరోజులుగా. అరే, గమనించలేదే మనం, ఇంతటి దౌర్భాగ్య పరిస్థితులలో మనమున్నామని మనకు మనమే చెప్పుకోవలసి వస్తుంది.

ఎట్లా దీన్నించి బయటపడాలా అనే ప్రశ్న వేసుకోవలసివస్తుంది. హైదరాబాద్‌లో బ్రతికిన వాళ్ళకు ఓ జ్ఞాపకం తప్పనిసరిగా వస్తుంది. ఎవ్వరూ మాట్లాడలేకపోతున్నారు. జగన్‌మోహనరెడ్డిని ముఖ్యమంత్రిగా చెయ్యకపోతే ఇది జేస్తాం అది జేస్తాం అనడం, ఇక్కడా అక్కడా దౌర్జన్యానికి పాల్పడటం చూస్తూ ఉంటే, హైదరాబాద్‌ నివాసులమైన మాకు 1992 జ్ఞాపకం వస్తుంది.
ఒక ముఖ్యమంత్రిని దించి మరొకరిని ఎక్కించడానికి పీకలు కోసిన ఆ మారణకాండ జ్ఞాపకం వస్తుంది. తండ్రి పీకలు కోసి ఆ రోజు ముఖ్యమంత్రులను మార్చాడు. కొడుకు అదే పని చేస్తాడా అన్న భయం. మీకిది అతిశయోక్తిగా అనిపియ్యవచ్చు బయట వాళ్ళకు. హైద్రాబాదులో బ్రతికిన వాళ్ళకు, చూసిన వాళ్ళకు, ఆ ఘటన కాలంలో అక్కడ జీవించిన వాళ్ళకు సహజంగా వచ్చేటటువంటి సందేహం.

ఎందుకు అనలేకపోతున్నారు ఈ విషయాలన్నీకూడా, ఎందుకు మాట్లాడలేక పోతున్నాం? ఈ జాతి, హక్కుల సాధనకు యోగ్యమైన జాతేనా? ఈ జాతి ప్రజాస్వామ్యానికి అర్హతున్న జాతేనా, ఈ తెలుగు జాతి? విమర్శకులుగా, మేధావులుగా, ప్రగతిశీల వ్యక్తులుగా పేరుబడ్డ వాళ్ళు, భయంలోపల తమ అవకాశాలు వెతుక్కుంటూ, దౌర్జన్యం లోపల తమకు అవకాశాలు వెతుక్కుంటూ, పోతూంటే, ఈ జాతి భవిష్యత్తు ఏమిటీ అన్న ప్రశ్న.

మేధావులు, బుద్ధిజీవుల పాత్ర ఎక్కువగా అంచనా వేయనక్కరలేదుగాని, నిజాయితీగల బుద్ధి జీవులు ఉండటమనేది ఒక సమాజం పురోగతికి ఒక అవసరమైన విషయమది. వాళ్ళ చేతిలో అంతా లేకపోయినా గూడా, నిజాయితీ ఉన్న బుద్ధిజీవులు లేరు ఈ ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్‌లో, ఈ తెలుగు జాతిలో, ఎంత బాధాకరమైన పరిస్థితి. భయం సంగతి పోనివ్వండి, రాజశేఖరరెడ్డి పథకాలలో భాగంగా ఒక ఇందిరమ్మ ఇల్లొచ్చినటువంటి ఒక బీదవాడు ఏడిచి, ఆయన చనిపోయాడని ఏడిస్తే నేనర్థం చేసుకుంటాను.

తనకు తెలిసింది అంతే ప్రపంచం, అంతకంటే సమగ్రమైన వివేచన తనకు సాధ్యం కాదు, ఆ సమాచారం లేదు, ఆ విశదీకరణ తెలియదు. ఆరోగ్యశ్రీ పథకం వల్ల, చాలాకాలం నయం కానివాడు, రోగం నయమయిన వ్యక్తి అయ్యో రాజశేఖరరెడ్డి చనిపోయాడని ఏడిస్తే నేను అర్థం చేసుకుంటాను. అంతకన్నా సమగ్రమైన విశ్లేషణలో అంతర్భాగంగా దానిని చూడటం ఆ వ్యక్తికి సాధ్యం కాదు. కాని దేన్నైనా ఒక మొత్తంలో చూడాలి, మొత్తంలో భాగంగానే ఆ భాగానికీ అర్థముంటుంది, మొత్తానికీ అర్థముంటుంది అని విశ్లేషించుకునేటటువంటి ప్రగతిశీల సంప్రదాయమున్న ఈ రాష్ట్రంలో, ఈ సంక్షేమ చర్యలు అన్నీ సంక్షేమచర్యలేనా? ఆ ప్రశ్న వేసుకోవచ్చు.

కొన్ని అవును, కొన్ని కాదు, కొన్ని ఆయనవి కానేకాదు. అదట్లావుంచి, ఏమి తీసుకుని ఏమిస్తున్నారు? ఇది ఇవ్వటానికి ఎంత తీసుకుంటూవున్నారు, ఏమి గుంజుకొని చేతిలో కొంత బెడుతున్నారు, ఎంత గుంజుకొంటున్నారు ఎంత పెడుతున్నారు అనే ప్రశ్న వేసుకుంటే తప్ప ఈ మొత్తం అర్థం గాదు, దాంట్లో భాగం అర్థం కాదు, ఆ సంక్షేమం అర్థం గాదు, అనే ఒక ప్రాథమిక విశ్లేషణ వివేచన చేయలేకపోతున్నారు అంటే అది భయమైనా, అది అవకాశవాదమైనా, ఏదో తమకోసం పొందామనేటటువంటి ఆకాంక్ష అయినా, దౌర్జన్యానికి భయపడి నోరు మూసుకునే పరిస్థితి అయినా, చాలా బాధాకరం.

ఎక్కడనుంచి వస్తున్నాయి ఇవన్నీ గూడా? ఎందుకు అకస్మాత్తుగా ఈ పదిహేను సంవత్సరాలలోనే, కోట్లాది రూపాయలు దీనికి దానికి మరొకదానికి పేదవాళ్ళకు ఇస్తున్నాము, ఇవ్వగలుగుతాము మేము అని కొందరు ఇస్తున్నారు? నేను ఇంకా ఎక్కువ ఇస్తాను అని ప్రతిపక్ష నాయకుడు చంద్రబాబు నాయుడు గారైతే ఫ్రీగా డబ్బులే ఇస్తాను, నగదు బదిలీ అన్నాడు.

ఏమిటీ దీని వెనకాలనున్నటువంటిది, ఇది ఇవ్వడానికి? ఇచ్చేవాడే ఆయన గెలిచుంటే, కొంతగాకపోతే కొంతైనా ఇచ్చుండేవాడు, ఇవ్వాళ గాకపోతే రేపైనా, ఈ దాతృత్వం వెనకాల, ఈ సంక్షేమం వెనకాల ఉన్నటువంటి ఒక టోటాలిటీ ఏమిటి? ఒక మొత్తం ఏమిటి? నరసింహారెడ్డిగారు చెప్పారు, ప్రపంచీకరణలో భారతదేశం భాగం అయిన తరువాత మిగులు చాలా పెరిగింది.

ఆ మిగులు విదేశీ మారక ద్రవ్యంలోనూ ఉంది, దేశం లోపల కన్సాలిడేటెడ్‌ ఫండ్‌లోనూ ఉంది. ఆ మిగులు నుంచి ఇవ్వగలుగుతున్నారు, చెయ్యగలుగుతున్నారు. ఆ మిగులు నుంచే అనేక సంక్షేమ పథకాలు అమలుచేయగలుగుతున్నారు. కానీ ఆ మిగులు పొందడానికి, ఆ ప్రపంచీకరణ అమలు చేయడానికి ఎంత లాక్కొంటున్నారు అదే ప్రజానీకం నుంచి, ఏమేమి గుంజుకుంటున్నారు అదే ప్రజానీకం నుంచి. ఒక హక్కుగా, ఒక పాలనా బాధ్యతగా, ఈ ప్రజానీకానికి అందవలసినటువంటి విద్యగాని, వైద్యంగాని, రోడ్లు గాని, రవాణా సదుపాయాలుగాని, వీటి మీద పెట్టవలసిన ఖర్చంత గూడా ఆపేసి, తగ్గించేసి, కార్పొరేట్‌ పెట్టుబడి కోసం, ఇన్‌ఫ్రాస్ట్రక్చర్‌ మీద ఖర్చు పెట్టుకొంటూ పోతున్నారు.

వైద్య వ్యవస్థ ఎట్లా నాశనమయ్యింది? విద్యావ్యవస్థ ఎట్లా నాశనమయ్యింది, రవాణా వ్యవస్థ ఎట్లా నాశనమయ్యింది, ఆ డబ్బంతా ఎక్కడికి పోయింది? ఇన్‌ఫ్రాస్ట్రక్చర్‌కి పోయింది, కార్పొరేట్‌ ఇన్‌ఫ్రాస్ట్రక్చర్‌కు పోయింది. అది మనం చూస్తూనే ఉన్నాం. ప్రజానీకానికి నిత్య జీవితంలో జీవనం కల్పించే ప్రకృతి వనరులు భూమి, నీళ్ళు, అడవులు, గాలి, 2 లక్షల ఎకరాలు ఈ రాష్ట్రంలో వాళ్ల నుంచి గుంజుకొని, ఈ కార్పొరేట్‌ సెక్టార్‌కు ఇవ్వబడుతున్నాయి, ఇవ్వబడ్డాయి కొంత.

అవంతా తీసేసుకొని, ఆ కార్పొరేట్‌ కంపెనీలకు ఇన్‌ఫ్రాస్ట్రక్చర్‌ తయారుచేసి, సదుపాయాలు తయారు చేసి, వాటిని ఆహ్వానించి, ఆ పెట్టుబడుల నుంచి, దాన్నించి వచ్చిన గ్రోత్‌ రేట్‌ నుంచి సంక్షేమం ఇస్తే, ఆ మొత్తంలో భాగంగా చూచినప్పుడు ఈ సంక్షేమానికి అర్థమేమిటి? చూడలేకపోతున్నావా నువ్వు? ఎందుకు చూడలేకపోతున్నావు? ఆ దృష్టి నీకు ఎందుకు లేకుండా పోతుంది? ప్రగతిశీలవాదులు, అభ్యుదయవాదులు, విశ్లేషణ చాతుర్యం ఉన్నవాళ్ళు అని పేరుపొందిన వాళ్లు. నేను అవకాశవాదమే అనుకుంటాను. అందుకే బుద్ధిజీవులు, తెలుగు బుద్ధి జీవులంటే ఇవ్వాళ సిగ్గుపడుతున్నాను. బహిరంగంగా ప్రకటిస్తున్నాను తెలుగుజాతి బుద్ధి జీవుల పట్ల నేను సిగ్గుపడుతున్నాను. నరసింహారెడ్డి విశ్లేషించి చెప్పుకుంటూ వచ్చారు.

ఆయన ఒక మాట అన్నారు. మనం హక్కుల గురించి ఎన్ని కోణాల నుంచి మాట్లాడినా, ఏమేమి చెయ్యవచ్చు, ఏ విధంగా మనుషుల మధ్య సౌభ్రాతృత్వాన్ని గాని, స్నేహంగాని, సహకారాన్ని గాని పెంపొందించుకోవచ్చు, ఏ విధంగా పరస్పర సహనం పెంపొందించుకోవచ్చు మతాలు కులాలు వీటి పట్ల, అని ఎన్ని మాట్లాడుకున్నా, ప్రపంచీకరణ, నయా ఉదారవాద పాలనా విధానాలు, ఆర్థిక విధానాలు, వాటి ఫలితంగా భౌతిక వనరుల పంపిణీ, వనరుల వినియోగం, దాన్నించి వచ్చే ఫలాల పంపిణీ వాటిని ఏం జేస్తున్నారు అని చూడకపోతే, మనం జేసే మిగిలిన పనులన్నీ గూడా అపరిపూర్ణంగా వుంటాయి.

సంపూర్ణంగా ఉండవు. దానిమీద తీవ్రమైన విమర్శ పెట్టాల్సిన అవసరం ఉంది. దృష్టి పెట్టాల్సిన అవసరం ఉంది. అవన్నీ మర్చిపోతే ఎట్లా? తెలియకకాదు, నరసింహారెడ్డిగారి మాటలు ఇదే మనుషులు గతంలో వినకా కాదు. చాలా బాధాకరమైన పరిస్థితి. ఇవ్వాళ భయం నుంచి బయటపడి ధైర్యంగా ఆత్మస్థైర్యంతో మాట్లాడేటటువంటి ఆ ప్రజాస్వామిక విలువను కాపాడుకోవటం కూడా చాలా ముఖ్యమైన పనైపోయింది ఇవ్వాళ మన ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్‌లో. ఆత్మ స్థైర్యం, ధైర్యం ప్రజాస్వామిక విలువలు, ఇవి లేకపోతే హక్కుల సాధన అయ్యేపనికాదు, ఇవి లేకపోతే మనం హక్కుల కోసం కొట్లాడటమనేది సాధ్యమయ్యే పనికాదు. అది చెప్పటం అవసరమని నేననుకుంటున్నాను.
……

అక్టోబర్‌ 2, 2009 అనంతపురంలో మానవహక్కుల వేదిక మూడవ రాష్ట్ర మహాసభల్లో కె. బాలగోపాల్‌ చేసిన ప్రసంగంలోని కొన్ని భాగాలు ఇవి. సుమారు మూడు సంవత్సరాల పాటు, ఈ అక్టోబర్‌ 7 దాకా, ‘ఆంధ్రజ్యోతి’లో ప్రతి పక్షం రోజులకు ఒకసారి బాలగోపాల్‌ వ్యాసాలు రాస్తూ వచ్చారు. నిశితమైన దృక్పథం, సరళమైన వ్యక్తీకరణతో ఆంధ్రజ్యోతికి ప్రతిష్ఠాకరమైన రచనలు అందించిన బాలగోపాల్‌కు కృతజ్ఞతాపూర్వకమైన నివాళి అర్పిస్తున్నాం.
-ఎడిటర్‌

Source: Andhra Jyothi 21 Oct 2009

Ministers squabble on Polavaram
October 31st, 2009
By Our Correspondent

Hyderabad, Oct. 30: A sustained campaign by a section of senior Congress leaders against the Polavaram project has irked their counterparts from the beneficiary districts.

This has come at a time when the Centre is all set to accord national project status to the Polavaram project. The Centre will bear 90 per cent of the project cost once it is accorded the national status.

Taking a cue from the Congress leaders, the Left parties and Telangana Rashtra Samithi have revived their demand for scrapping Polavaram and taking up a couple of minor projects in its place.

The pro-project sections are waiting for the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, to make the government’s stand clear not just on Polavaram but the entire Jalayagnam. Mr Rosaiah has reviewed every subject except irrigation. Sources said he postponed the Jalayagnam review twice.

The irrigation officials said the government would lose the grant of Rs 25,000 crore over a period of time if any of the projects were scrapped.

The earlier union minister of water sources, Prof. Saifuddin Souz, had identified 25 projects including Pranahitha Chevella for completion under the PM’s package for distressed districts.

The Centre accordingly relaxed norms and agreed to fund these projects under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme.

“Our leaders are even going against the spirit of Dr Manmohan Singh who wrote a letter to YSR asking him to ensure speedy completion of irrigation projects,” a senior minister from coastal districts pointed out.

The major irrigation minister, Mr Ponnala Lakshamaiah, said the Polavaram project would get clearance from the forest department and then the matter would be placed before the Union Cabinet.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/ministers-squabble-polavaram-592

GHMC polls on November 23
Times of India, 29 October 2009

HYDERABAD: The state election commission on Wednesday announced the much-awaited schedule for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections for which voting will take place on November 23.

This will be the first electoral test for the state Congress under new chief minister K Rosaiah. As per the scheduled announced by SEC commissioner A V S Reddy, nominations for the polls will be accepted from October 31 to November 6. November 10 will be the last date of withdrawals and polling will take place on November 23. The results will be announced on November 26 and the newly-elected 150 councillors will elect the mayor and deputy mayor on December 6.

This will be the first election for the GHMC since it was created in 2007. The 150 wards of GHMC are spread across five Lok Sabha and 25 assembly constituencies. The LS constituencies are Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Malkajgiri and parts of Chevella and Medak.

The last elections to the civic body was held in 2002 when it was known as Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad and had a strength of 100 members. At that time, the Telugu Desam government was in power in the state. The elections in 2002 were held after a gap of 15 years. The MIM emerged as the single largest party winning 36 divisions, the TDP-BJP combine secured 37 divisions, Congress 20 divisions, TRS and Majlis Bachao Tahreek 2 each, and Telangana Sadhana Samiti and independent one each

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/GHMC-polls-on-November-23/articleshow/5174770.cms

MIM eyeing Mayor’s post
J.S. Ifthekhar

The Hindu, 29 October 2009

Party receives 332 applications for the 150 divisions

Hyderabad: ‘Shaher hamara, Mayor hamara’. That’s what the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) is going to town with. The party has set its sights on the coveted Mayoral gaddi in the next month’s civic polls.

The Majlis confidence stems from the fact that a good number of municipal divisions fall under its bastion. However, the Congress with its 30 ex-officio members is in an enviable position to secure the Mayorship. The Majlis is aware of this and is therefore planning to annex a large number of divisions on its own. It views the sudden death of former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, as a great setback to the Congress. “It has no charismatic leader to campaign in the city,” says Majlis president Asaduddin Owaisi.

Sought after: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi surrounded by ticket aspirants for the GHMC polls at the party office on Thursday (Photo: P.V. Sivakumar)

The BJP, he feels, is also in a disadvantageous position. Having supported unsuccessfully the Telugu Desam parliamentary candidate of Hyderabad, Zahid Ali Khan, the party’s vote bank in the city is totally decimated. The Majlis has also completed the exercise of receiving applications almost two months ago.

It has received a total of 332 applications for the 150 divisions and is not entertaining any new applications. “We will give good representation to women, SC, ST and BC candidates,” Mr. Asaduddin said. On Thursday, he held a first round of consultation with the party legislators at Darussalam. They were given the task of ensuring the success of party candidates in their respective constituencies. It is decided to kick off the party’s election campaign with a huge public meeting on November 1 at Dargah Yousufain in Nampally. There will be regular public meetings and padayatras thereafter.

The Majlis promises to ensure development of neglected areas, rationalise property tax and hasten the Building Regularisation Scheme.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/30/stories/2009103059520300.htm

TDP may not back TRS on free zone issue
Express News Service, 26 Oct 2009

HYDERABAD: Six months after the Assembly elections, the main Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has almost dumped its ally the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). The TRS too is trying hard to move away from the TDP in order to get closer to the Congress.

As the experiment with the TRS failed to click in the Assembly elections, the TDP is now targeting the TRS leadership for its failure to carry forward the Telangana slogan effectively.

The TDP is now trying to project a picture to the people of Telangana that it is the only party which has been with the Telangana people through thick and thin.

The TDP leaders say that they launched agitations against `skull symbol on beedi packs’, Babhli project and other key issues. It was TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu who visited several villages in Mahaboobnagar and helped the flood victims by providing relief material.

“We thought that if all the Opposition parties sailed together it would help to dislodge the Congress Government in the State. But, the poll arithmetic proved otherwise,’’ said a TDP leader from Telangana.

In the wake of these developments, TDP is unlikely to support the no-trust motion being introduced by the TRS against the State Government on Hyderabad free zone issue.

If at all Assembly session is convened to discuss the no-trust motion, the TDP is likely to watch the reactions from Congress rather than supporting the TRS. TDP stand on free-zone is that the Government should not deviate from the Presidential order or GO 610. The TDP had already endorsed State’s move to file a review petition in the Supreme Court on free zone issue.

SC order on capital gives TRS fresh life

A Srinivasa Rao

India Today, October 28, 2009

Is Hyderabad not a part of Telangana, but a separate entity by virtue of being the capital of Andhra Pradesh? This issue is now the most hotly debated topic across the state. And it has given a new lease of life to the Telangana movement, which had almost been buried after the debacle of pro- Telangana forces in the recent general elections.

The whole controversy began with a Supreme Court judgement on October 9, declaring that Hyderabad was not a part of Telangana but a free zone insofar as recruitments and postings in government went.

Therefore, the Supreme Court ruled, people from all parts of the state would have equal rights in jobs, postings and promotions there. It meant the people of Telangana, who have been enjoying local area status in Hyderabad with 70 per cent quota in government jobs all these years, would have to forego the benefit and now have to compete with people from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema for such openings.

Hitherto, the state government had been treating Hyderabad as part of Zone VI, along with Ranga Reddy, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Nizamabad and Medak districts for the purpose of government recruitments, postings and promotions. There are five other zones in the rest of the state.

The Zonal system was created as part of Presidential Orders issued in 1975, based on the six point formula worked out by the then Indira Gandhi government to undo the injustice caused to Telangana in recruitments, as a fallout of the historic Telangana movement of 1969- 72. But, the formula was violated more often than not, causing a lot of unrest among the Telangana employees.

In 1985, the then N T Rama Rao government issued a special government order (G.O 610) to repatriate all the employees recruited in the state in violation of the six- point formula.

But this GO, too, was flouted on a number of occasions. After the formation of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in 2001 reviving the Telangana movement, the Chandrababu Naidu government constituted a committee headed by retired IAS officer J M Girglani, who also ruled that Hyderabad was not a free zone, but part of Zone VI of Telangana. He said the Zonal system was applicable not only to state- level offices such as Secretariat, directorates, commissionerates and corporations and Group- I cadre recruitments; for the purpose of local recruitments such as in the Collectorate, police department and appointment of teachers, Hyderabad is part of Zone VI with locals entitled to a 70 per cent quota. Subsequently, the government started repatriating police constables and officers from Hyderabad to their respective zones.

Some of them first approached the State Administrative Tribunal and later moved the High Court, but both ruled that Hyderabad was part of Zone- VI in Telangana. Subsequently, they filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the HC order.

This has led to the Supreme Court declaring Hyderabad a “free zone.” The SC order has triggered a lot of unrest among the Telangana employee associations, which fear that candidates from Andhra would grab their jobs in Hyderabad. Senior advocate S Ramachandra Rao observed that the Supreme Court order was against the spirit of the Presidential Orders of 1975, which had nowhere mentioned that Hyderabad was a free zone.

The Telangana Employees’ Union president C Vithal said the verdict would lead to a further rift between Telangana and Andhra employees.

For the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which has been down in the dumps for the last six months, the order has come as a god- sent opportunity to revive the Telangana movement.

Within a week, the TRS organised a massive public meeting of Telangana employees at Siddipet in Medak district, where its president K Chandrasekhara Rao declared that he would wage a protracted struggle to achieve a separate Telangana state.

He gave the call of “Telanganawale Jaago, Andhrawale Bhago,” evoking loud protests from Andhraites, and creating a tense atmosphere in the state.

KCR even called for a “Jail Bharo” programme on October 28 against the “Hyderabad- as free zone” order.

The state government led by Chief Minister K Rosaiah held an all- party meeting last week to discuss the contentious “free zone” issue and decided to file a review petition in the Supreme Court.

Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&issueid=111&id=68193&Itemid=1&sectionid=114

Economic & Political Weekly, October 24, 2009 vol xliv no 43
Commentary

YSR ‘Shock Deaths’ in Andhra

C Ramachandraiah

Over 450 people were reported to have died of “shock” following the death of Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. While the high-pitched media coverage may have contributed to some of these deaths, it also appears likely that eager Congress workers gave money to poor people asking them to claim that the natural deaths of members of their respective families were due to “shock” at the death of YSR. This was a cynical move to pressurise the Congress leadership to make his son, Jaganmohan Reddy, the chief minister.

Over 450 people are reported to have died of shock in the days following the tragic death of the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (popularly known as YSR) in the helicopter crash on 2 September 2009. Though the helicopter carrying YSR and four others is now known to have crashed around 9.30 am on 2 September, the news of their death was telecast only on the morning of 3 September, i e, after a full 24 hours of suspense about the fate of the chief minister. That the helicopter was missing was itself confirmed only late in the afternoon of 2 September by the then finance minister (present chief minister) K Rosaiah.

YSR had emerged a mass political leader in AP after his padayatra during April-June 2003. Aided by a booming economy, a slew of welfare/populist measures and distribution of patronage through public work contracts and other means, he became a popular chief minister. His personal traits of helping those who approach him and taking care of the needs of his followers earned him supporters across the state.

The intriguing question is whether YSR’s personal popularity as well as the popularity of his welfare measures can explain the unusually large number of deaths in the state that were reported soon after YSR’s passing. The largest number of deaths (227) was reported on 4 September, the day of the funeral and on 5 September (107) a day after the funeral. Comparatively there were fewer “shock deaths” (62) when his death was confirmed on 3 September, after a 24-hour media-fed frenzy and suspense over his missing helicopter . Of the 289 deaths that were reported to have occurred on the 3 and 4 September, 91% (263) were due to heart attacks while the rest (26) were suicides.

The non-stop live coverage by television news channels of YSR’s disappearance and search operations could be one reason explaining such a large number of deaths. Breathless “breaking news” and high pitched “debates” raised curiosity and kept matters on the boil. The steady build-up of search operations, which soon came to be touted as one of the biggest such operations in recent history added to this mix of curiosity and tension. Since all this was happening towards the dawn on 2 September many might have watched TV throughout the night, and more so on 3-4 September until the funeral.

There are nearly 20 Telugu TV channels of various types, which continuously broadcast the events. In their ugly competition for viewership, these channels fuelled confusion and mystery till the death of YSR became irrefutable and some even peddled rumours after confirmation of this death. Once the deaths were confirmed, they started competing to telecast live visuals of wailing followers and archival footage of YSR’s speeches and actions. As life came to a standstill across the state, it is possible to argue that such continuous footage on the visual media might have had a numbing effect on the minds of his followers and also many others. Further, these TV channels played tragic film songs as background music, along with eulogies of YSR as a “god” and “saviour of the downtrodden”. By the time the funeral was over on the evening of 4 September, 33 hours had already passed since the confirmation of the deaths and more than 48 hours since the helicopter was confirmed missing. Once the funeral was over, these channels started telecasting the visuals of the crash site and the gathering of the mangled dead bodies into sacks and lifting them into the rescue helicopters above. These visuals, showing the gory nature of the deaths, might have further added to a feeling of depression.

Several relatives of those who died in the aftermath of YSR’s death told the media that the deceased were not eating properly since the news of the helicopter crash was confirmed and many of them collapsed after continuously watching TV visuals of YSR’s death. The role of the visual media (in inducing the deaths) in the events of this nature should surely be a matter of concern.

Faking the Number of Deaths?

Given this role of the media, there still remains a suspicion about the number of “shock deaths” attributed to YSR’s death. In simple language, it can be argued that the number of deaths has been faked; that many deaths which occurred due to varied reasons have been attributed to YSR’s death. It appears that many Congress leaders and government officials induced bereaved families to make false claims in a well organized manner. The victims’ families are known to have been promised financial help, at some places, including family pensions on the lines of widow/old age pensions, if they put out the story that the person died while watching footages of YSR’s death on TV. At some places, amounts ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 were reported to be distributed by the followers of YSR’s son, Jaganmohan Reddy, and more was promised once he became chief minister “As if tutored, everybody said that the person died while watching the funeral scenes on TV” . This should be seen in light of the fact that the ugly chorus of “Jagan for CM” was started by Congress leaders even before YSR’s body reached Hyderabad. The swelling “shock death” numbers were probably meant to show, YSR’s popularity and to convey that Jaganmohan Reddy, as YSR’s son, was the only person capable of taking on that mantle and fulfilling the aspirations of the people.

The age of the victims and the regional distribution of deaths gives further credence to the suspicion on the number of “shock deaths”. Of the 289 deaths that were reported during 3-4 September, age details were available for 249 persons. Of these, 76 victims (31%) were 60 years and above including 24 persons of 70 years and above. Of the 289 deaths, the largest number was from Warangal district (37) in Telangana followed by East Godavari district (33) in coastal Andhra whereas the number was very small in YSR’s native district of Kadapa (8), where his patronage was at its maximum. Warangal is a centre of the separate Telangana movement whereas YSR was a staunch supporter of an integrated Andhra Pradesh. Rangareddy district, which surrounds Hyderabad city, reported only two deaths on 3 September and none on the day of the funeral. This district has witnessed an unprecedented real estate boom, while many information technology parks and special economic zones are located in it and many fortunes here were directly linked to YSR’s rule. The two very poor districts in Telangana, Mahbubnagar and Adilabad, together reported only 10 deaths. The three north coastal districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam reported only three deaths on the first day and 13 deaths the next day (during 3-4 September). This skew surely indicates that it was not only the shock of YSR’s death among those who benefited under his chief ministership and where he was most popular which accounts for these deaths.

AP has witnessed a large number of suicides of farmers and the rural poor over the years due to crop failures, rising debts and rural distress. YSR tried to temporarily ameliorate some of the problems through welfare/populist measures. Any small help that reaches them was hugely welcomed by these distressed people. Equally so, any perceived loss of those benefits (as might have been felt by them after YSR’s death) could have led to fear and depression These distress situations, aided by the continuous footage of the TV channels, might have resulted in a few deaths, but reports of such a large number raises doubts and needs deeper probing. In addition to the above, it is also worth investigating the linkages between the reporting of a large number of deaths from a few districts only and the overenthusiastic activism of the Congress Party functionaries and government officials in those districts.

In the end, it appears that the normal deaths of many common people came in handy for YSR’s (and his son’s) ardent followers to make political capital for their “Jagan for CM” campaign, oblivious to the rather sombre occasion of mourning.

C Ramachandraiah (crchandraiah@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad.

Bandh paralyses normal life in Gulbarga city
Special Correspondent, The Hindu 15 July 2009

Several organisations had called for bandh for varied reasons
• Hyderabad Karnataka Horata Samiti wants Article 371 of the Constitution to be amended
• Karnataka Rakshana Vedike protests against delay in taking up road-widening work in the city

Gulbarga: Bandh was total in Gulbarga city on Tuesday. Normal life was paralysed with all shops, business establishments, both wholesale and retail markets downing their shutters in response to two separate bandh calls.

While the Hyderabad Karnataka Horata Samiti and the Hyderabad Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industries supported by other organisations called for bandh demanding Amendment to Article 371 of the Constitution on the Telangana model, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike called for Gulbarga city bandh to demand that an IAS officer be posted as the Commissioner of the Gulbarga City Corporation and also to demand that road-widening work be taken up in the city. Besides, the vedike activists protested against the lack of will of political parties to get Article 371 of the Constitution amended.

In response to the bandh call, the North Eastern Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC) authorities suspended its city and mofussil services since morning as a precautionary measure. The only saving grace for the harassed public in the absence of public transport was a few auto rickshaws that defied the bandh call and operated in the city.

Although no untoward incident was reported in the city during the bandh, there were many incidents of intimidation by the organisers of the bandh, particularly involving activists of the vedike. They reportedly forced closure of shops and forced auto rickshaw drivers to stop ferrying passengers in many interior localities. Total lawlessness prevailed in some parts of the city where supporters of the bandh erected barricades on the roads preventing free movement of traffic.

The police who were present in large numbers were a silent witness to the violation of law and open intimidation by the lathi-wielding vedike activists who ensured that the bandh was total.

Members of the Hyderabad Karnataka Horata Samiti; Hyderabad Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HKCCI); Janata Dal (S); and Gulbarga Bar Association took out a procession from the Super Market to the Deputy Commissioner office where they submitted a memorandum urging the Union Government to amend Article 371 of the Constitution on the Telangana model.

Among those who participated in the procession were the former Minister and president of the Horata Samiti Vaijnath Patil; HKCCI president Umakant Nigudgi; Sulpul Mutt chief Sri Mahanta Shivacharyaru; Dalit leader Shivaram Moga; and district Janata Dal (S) president Shankaranna Voneykal.

The Karnataka Rakshana Vedhike protest was led by its state president Shivarame Gowda; president of the North Karnataka units of the vedike Sharanu Gaddige; and district president Arunkumar S. Patil.

The vedike activists burnt an effigy of Urban Development Minister Suresh Kumar.

Source: The Hindu 15, July 2009 http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/15/stories/2009071555120300.htm

………….
`Extend Mulki Rules to Hyderabad-Karnataka’
Special Correspondent, The Hindu, Nov 20, 2006

More local people will be recruited to government posts
• The rules are in vogue in Andhra Pradesh
• Samiti had filed a PIL in the court in this regard

GULBARGA: The Hyderabad Karnataka Horata Samiti (HKHS) has received a shot in the arm in its movement demanding equal share for the people of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region in recruitment to government jobs.

The Karnataka High Court admitted a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by it and issued a notification to the State Government on extending the Mulki Rules, which ensure recruitment of local people in government jobs, to the Hyderabad-Karnataka region as was being done in Andhra Pradesh.

President of the Samiti Vaijnath Patil, MLA, who is spearheading an agitation for the redressal of regional imbalances in development and job opportunities in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region said the two-member High Court bench headed by Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph had admitted the PIL demanding that the State Government implement the Mulki Rules, which was in vogue in the erstwhile Hyderabad province prior to the reorganisation of the States in 1956, and ordered issue of notices to the Government.

In its PIL the samiti said the Mulki Rules, which came into existence during the Nizam’s rule in 1928, were in practice till the reorganisation of States in 1956. While the Mulki Rules continued to be extended to the Telangana region, which was merged with Andhra Pradesh from the erstwhile Hyderabad province and were extended to the entire Andhra Pradesh, the regions which were merged with then Mysore State were not extended the Mulki Rule benefits in recruitments in government departments.

He said that the Mulki Rules provided for 80 per cent reservation for local people in all the recruitments for C and D posts for which the recruitments are done at the district level and 60 per cent reservation for the Class A and B posts which is done at the divisional level.

People in Andhra Pradesh were given another benefit of reservation in the educational opportunities by amending Article 371 of the Constitution and including the State under the schedule.

He said the State Government can implement the rules in Hyderabad-Karnataka region using provisions of Article 372 of the Constitution and it did not require permission from Centre.

Until the rules were extended to the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, Mr. Patil said all recruitments to government posts should be suspended and legislators from the region should pressure the Government to concede to this demand.

http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/20/stories/2006112004720300.htm

Telangana Congress leaders oppose Polavaram

HYDERABAD: Making public their opposition to the construction of Polavaram project across Godavari, senior Congress leaders from Telangana have suggested construction of seven barrages to bring down the cost of the project and avoid extensive submergence of land.

At a meeting of party seniors at the residence of former Minister Palvai Goverdhan Reddy here of Friday, they felt that there was urgent need to discuss the fate of the irrigation projects in Telangana. The meeting, which was attended by former Home Minister K. Jana Reddy, MLCs – K. Yadava Reddy and K. R. Amos and former MLC B. Kamalakar Rao favoured redesigning of the project.

They concluded that the seven barrages could be constructed at half the cost of the present allocation for Polavaram. Leaders pointed out that Polavaram project involved extensive submergence of villages in not only AP but Orissa and Chhattisgarh. The barrages would reduce the scope for submergence of villages, facilitate more power generation and irrigate more land.

They also felt that there was immediate need to revive the activities of Telangana Regional Congress Coordination Committee (TRCCC) to not only discuss the irrigation projects but also the Supreme Court decision on Hyderabad as ‘free zone’.

Mr. Jana Reddy reportedly briefed the leaders as to how the disparity in the affidavits could have resulted in the latest judgement. He reportedly suggested that while filing a review petition was the best option, other way like seeking a central amendment was must to rectify the anomaly. The leaders lamented that proper care was not taken by the Government, when the affidavit was filed in the Supreme Court.

source: The Hindu, Oct 24, 2009 http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/24/stories/2009102460880700.htm

A Political Post- Mortem: Andhra Pradesh After YSR
By Kadempally Sudhakar

The sudden and tragic death of Y Rajashekar Reddy (YSR) left the Congress Party and his beneficiaries in a state of shock, void and dumb. No doubt YSR was the most powerful and crowed puller Congress CM AP ever had. Earlier Congress CMs were appointed and removed as per high command calculations and convenience. The important point is YSR rose to CM chair during Sonia Gandhi’s stewardship. The same YSR was a permanent dissident leader throughout his political career right from Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao era. It is only during Sonia’s time YSR came out of dissidence and took a historic padayatra throughout the state and came to power in 2004 defeating Chandrababu Naidu. No other previous congress CM had this kind of mass appeal and contacts. Main reasons for YSR’s victory in 2004 were Naidu’s lopsided policies, neglect of agriculture, farmer suicides. People saw in YSR a hope and fed up with Naidu’s World Bank policies which YSR used very well and saw him as a messiah. In 2004, Naidu was alone fighting the Congress, left, TRS, MIM combine. YSR gets full marks for Congress revival in the state and his valuable contribution at the centre.

Sonia was too happy with YSR for sending 29 crucial and largest number of Congress MPs to Lok Sabha which facilitated in forming a UPA led front government. Unlike previous congress chiefs’, Sonia acted with immense maturity, common sense, benevolent in choosing Dr Singh as PM. This strategy improved her image, popularity ratings, became stronger than before (like Indira era). It was clear that she left the governance to Dr Singh and she managed politics. This arrangement worked well and UPA was fortunate that during 2004- 2008 there was an unprecedented economic boom resulted in real estate, consumer goods, media, and infrastructure areas. Dr Singh govt did very well except couple of alleged scams in telecom sector, public sector privatization etc. UPA’s NREGS scheme helped them coming back in 2009 and of course BJP’s failure and left’s bankruptcy too helped. Still Rahul is on probation and training. The Congress High command had given full freedom to YSR since 2004 in both political and governance matters on TINA factor.

For YSR there was no looking back till his tragic death on 2nd September 2009. During his first tenure (2004-9) YSR was allegedly involved in many controversies related to his son’s properties, investments and its sources and business dealings. All opposition parties went to Delhi and submitted reports on YSR corruption charges to Congress President. By the time he became CM, all old horses in the state congress had become too old to walk and talk and they have no mass base or groups. Till NTR came into politics, there was no mass politics or public contacts by then the CMs. Mass politics were done by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv throughout the country and they did not allow any state leaders to do mass politics. Things have changed when Sonia took over the mantle. She did not change CMs as was done in the past and changed the perception in general about the working style of the party. YSR was lucky in many respects, during his period there was unprecedented economic boom, good monsoons, no credible and mass leader/s in the party and his only target was Naidu.

In earlier times, checks and balances were done by their own leaders. Since YSR was a dissident leader in most his career, hence he also knows how to control dissidents and he was successful. He cut off lines to all other leaders from high command and state in-charges in Delhi . He used Delhi model of mass politics in the state and made clear to his ministers and MLA, leave politics and governance to him and mind their own business. As a result of this, no other leader emerged or no scope at all, other senior leaders were too happy with their kith and kin getting MLA or MP seat or some projects. He had become invincible and the most powerful congress CM that AP ever had.

There were some serious and credible allegations against him by the opposition on irrigation projects, land dealings, power and mining projects, SEZs. Coastal corridor project, diverting water and other resources to Rayalaseema and his own son’s business dealings etc. His popular schemes like Arogyasree, Indiramma housing schemes, free power to farmers, 2kg rice etc certainly won the hearts of people but they have failed to reach the needy. With all these schemes, he went to 2009 polls with a promise to continue till the end.

Though he came back to power with a wafer thin majority (this is the first time in AP, a government is ruling with a slender margin) in the assembly and the number went to 155 down by 30. Congress won 50 seats with less than 2000 votes majority. But for Lokh Sabha Congress sent 33 MPs up by 4 when compare to 2004. One has to see these results with a critical and logical mind. When there are simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and assembly in a state, there will be a correlation between MP and MLA seats won by a party. In this case congress won 33 MP seats and assembly they should have won between 220 – 240 minimum on the contrary they won only 155. Hence the votes and seats of MPs won are not of YSR but they are for Dr Singh and Sonia. The Congress high command is fully aware of this fact (hopefully).

Implications of YSR policies and governance on the Congress Party

The congress party known earlier as upper caste party, but after YSR took over it was perceived as true Reddy party. YSR openly inducted his own people in the assembly, legislative council and other plum government posts including DGP and Aviation Corporation MD and VCs. He alienated especially backward classes and madigas in SCs in the political process. There is Tsunami which will surface and hit soon. He also ridiculed and humiliated Telangana people in all respects – be it water sharing, implementation of G.O 610, setting up name sake universities in Telangana, selling people’s land in and around Hyderabad in the name of SEZs. Out of 97 SEZs in AP nearly 45 are located in Hyderabad surroundings and mainly IT and real estate related areas.

Investments in AP: During his tenure not a single large project had come to AP. Instead gas is being taken away from AP by Ambani; minerals in the state are exploited by his kith and kin and brought BJP govt in Karnataka. Spent Rs 600 core of public money to build an express highway to the airport (for whose sake?). The opposition still demands a white paper on his achievements in this area.

Public services: They are worst in the history of AP, be it health services, school education, police. The AP Council for Higher Education has become a broker agency for 500 odd third rate engineering and other so called professional colleges in the name of Fee reimbursement for SC/ST and OBCs is similar to Arogyasree scheme for financing private individuals. YSR govt had given free hand to employees a free hand “do whatever you want but don’t get caught red handed” and GOs issued to this effect.

Welfare schemes: Most of his schemes benefit only rich or corporate in the name of Arogyasree, fee reimbursement, housing schemes, ration cards etc.

Irrigation projects: It is a big joke, Mr Moily writes a book on micro irrigation and dedicates to YSR who believed only in major irrigation projects! YSR govt spent thousands of cores on irrigation projects without plans, permissions and public consent. Politicians conceived and designed all these projects. The latest floods in Kurnool, Mahabuubnagar are the testimony.

Financial situation: Is pretty bad, according to the present CM and former and current finance minister. The only income they are able to generate is liquor as per the plan. When YSR took over in 2004 the liquor income was Rs 3000 core whereas in 2009 it is projected as Rs 12000 core. According to a survey, almost 40% rural youth in AP lives on alcohol!

These are only few major policies and governance examples of YSR. Analysts say YSR would not come back to power in 2014 even if he was alive. He did narrowly escape in 2009 with all these schemes. It a huge task for the Congress High Command for its own making for setting right AP politics and they should be happy that they have another four and half years to go. As of now, looking at leaders and leadership in AP Congress, it is unlikely that Congress would come back in 2014 unless a miracle happens and unless congress high command acts swiftly on the issue of social justice in politics, governance, and punish those involved in scams irrespective of political affiliations to instill confidence in people. Otherwise Naidu need not work hard at all.

There are likely three scenarios/ options for Congress in 2014:

1. Function as they are now and hand over the baton to Naidu
2. Co-opt Chirnajeevi and comrades try to retain power
3. It does not matter to congress high command if AP becomes two parts or three parts as long as they get MPs to make Rahul as PM. So co-opt Chnadrashekar Rao and give Telangana and can cut Naidu to size.

Its a be a big lesson and challenge for the Congress high command in shaping future politics in AP and in the country and also a lesion for other political parties like BJP in particular ( example Modi and Yedyurappa).

- K Sushaker k.sudhakargoud@gmail.com

SC judgment spurs revival of Telangana movement
Deccan Herald News Service, Oct 18, Hyderabad:

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has decided to launch a peaceful agitation from next week to achieve its goal of a separate state. However, the TRS workers will not hesitate to face bullets if the government attempts to suppress the movement.

Announcing the new phase of the movement, TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao, who has been lying low after the electoral rout of his party in May, said the party will launch the new phase at a public meeting in Medak district on October 21 followed by a week-long mobilisation of the cadres from division-level which will culminate in a “jail bharo” programme on October 28.

The immediate reason for the revival of the issue of a separate Telangana is the Supreme Court judgment of last week making Hyderabad city a “free zone” for recruitment of police, meaning the six-point formula, a guarantee given by the Centre, to protect the interests of people of Telangana in government recruitment will not be applicable in Hyderabad zone. The TRS has said it will file a writ in the SC appealing against the decision.

The government, too, has called for an all-party meeting on Monday to discuss the implications of the judgment. The TRS is also demanding equal share for Telangana in Krishna waters and wants the region’s share to be specified and allocated.

Rao said the interests of the people of Telangana could be protected only by amending the Constitution.

To put pressure on the Congress governments both at the Centre and in the state to grant statehood to the region, the TRS will intensify its struggle, he said.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/31149/sc-judgment-spurs-revival-telangana.html
………………………

File review petition against ‘free zone’ ruling: TNGOs

The Hindu 13, October 2009

HYDERABAD: The Telangana NGOs’ Central Union on Monday demanded the State Government to immediately file a review petition in the Supreme Court against its ruling on Hyderabad ‘free zone’ and order a comprehensive enquiry into the administration’s alleged inefficient handling of the case.

Leaders and members of the union took out a rally from the Telangana NGOs Bhavan to the Martyrs’ Memorial, near the State Assembly, demanding intervention of both the Central and the State Governments in the case.

They wanted the State Government not to implement the court order as it did in 1972 in the court’s ruling on ‘Mulki’ rules. If the order is enforced, the interests of Telangana employees will be in jeopardy, they alleged. The leaders contended that there is no mention of a ‘free zone’ in the Presidential Order.

Members of the union will stage dharnas in front of Collectorates in Telangana districts on Tuesday seeking intervention of the Governments and an announcement by Chief Minister K. Rosaiah clarifying the Government stand on the issue in view of varying interpretations by leaders of political parties.

K. Swamy Goud, president, G. Devi Prasad, general secretary, M. B. Krishna Yadav, G. Venkateswarlu, S. M. Hussaini, R. Ranjan, Saleemuddin and K. Venkateswarlu were among those who took part in the rally.

‘Implement G.O. 610’

Karimnagar Staff Reporter writes: The Telangana Non-Gazetted Officers Union Karimnagar district unit has decided to stage a dharna in front of the Collectorate here on Tuesday afternoon in protest against the Supreme Court’s decision of declaring Hyderabad as a free zone.
In a press note here on Monday, TNGOs’ president A. Satyanarayana and general secretary N. Narasimha Swamy said that Hyderabad is part of Telangana and cannot be included as free zone.

Demanding the government to implement G.O. 610, Girglani report, Presidential Order and Mulki rules, they urged the Supreme Court to rethink about the decision in the interest of development of backward Telangana region.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/10/13/stories/2009101352030300.htm

……………………………

KCR’s words on free zone puzzle TRS men
Express News Service, 12 Oct 2009

HYDERABAD: K Chandrasekhara Rao of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) remains as enigmatic as ever.

After praising Sonia Gandhi sky-high and describing her as a dayamayi (kind-hearted person), Rao has not ceased surprising TRS observers. The latest one came from his statement condemning his colleagues’s threat of plunging the State into anarchy if Hyderabad were to remain a free zone insofaras implementation of GO 610 is concerned.

The TRS chief said that declaration of Hyderabd as a free zone by the Supreme Court was a very simple issue and that the TRS leaders need not get worked up over it. He said it could be resolved by filing a revision petition in the apex court.

What has been puzzling the TRS cadres is the slow but unmistakable shift of the party’s stand from its avowed policy of fighting and espousing the cause of Telagnana. While he was praising Sonia Gandhi at one point of time, Chandrasekhara Rao said that he was first a resident of (united) Andhra Pradesh and then only Telangana man.

In another context, referring to flood victims, the TRS chief said that pain was same to everyone regardless of whether one was a national of Ethiopia or Uganda or Nagayalanka or Nakrekal (watch the order of the places).

Then he talks about the regular visit of people of Guntur and Vijayawada to Telagnana Bhavan, the headquarters of his party. “Several people from these two towns (which are in Andhra) who visit the Indo-American Cancer Hospital for treatment to their relatives come to Telanana Bhavan for shelter. We cannot deny. It is a human problem,’’ he said and wondered aloud whther people in Andhra would remain unmoved if a person from Telangana went to Vijayawada and met with a road accident.

This shift in the core philosophy of party coupled with praising Sonia Gandhi and insisting on a CBI inquiry into the projects constructed by the the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s government under Jalayagnam appears not to irritate the Congress national leadership and if possible please it by speaking words that it would like to hear.

As the high command is not in favour of YSR’s son Jagan Mohan Reddy and is never in favour of Telangana, the TRS chief is speaking words that would take him much closer to the Congress and extend any strategic help that the party might require in future.

What would be his pound of flesh in return for his help is not clear yet though the situation might help him regain his lost ground as regards the party’s presence in Telangana.

Source: http://expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=KCR%E2%80%99s+words+on+free+zone+puzzle+TRS+men&artid=|TkDeDpu17Y=&SectionID=e7uPP4|pSiw=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=EH8HilNJ2uYAot5nzqumeA==&SEO=
………………………………

KCR opts for softer line on Telangana
Deccan Chronicle, October 12, 2009
By Our Correspondent

Hyderabad Oct. 11: The TRS chief, Mr K. Chandrasekar, who is known for his adamant and ruthless attitude took a ‘U’ turn on Sunday when he condemned the statements of his party leaders against the Supreme Court judgement on making Hyderabad city a free zone.

KCR criticised the TRS legislative party leader, Mr E. Rajender, for making provocative statements on the issue.

Some TRS leaders threatened violence if the government not appeal against the Supreme Court direction.

“Issuing a threat of violence is not good and it has no place in democracy. I condemn such statements. After all the making Hyderabad a free zone for certain posts is small issue when it comes to Telangana state,” said KCR.

For the first time, he announced that he always wished the state should move forward and achieve all-round development. He directed his party to exercise restraint on the sensitive issues.

A few days ago, KCR had announced that he was first a citizen of Andhra Pradesh and then a Telanganite. Sources in the party disclosed that after massive defeat in the elections and observing the support that the late had YSR garnered across the Telangana, KCR had changed his mind.

Two days ago, KCR had made an acerbic comment on the irrigation minister, Mr P. Laxmaiah, regarding the projects under constructions in the Rayalaseema region. This had led to a high-pitched political debate between Congress and TRS leaders.

Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/kcr-opts-softer-line-telangana-994
………………………………….
‘City is free zone only for police’
Express News Service 11 Oct 2009

HYDERABAD: Members of the ruling Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Telangana Employees’ Union have said that the Supreme Court’s judgment treating Hyderabad as a “free zone’’ would be applicable only to the police department.

If this were to be extended to other departments of government then it would amount to violation of the Presidential Orders issued in 1975, they opined.

The Supreme Court, in its orders in a case filed by some petitioners(police inspectors) challenging the orders issued by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, dismissed the High Court orders and adjudged Hyderabad a “free zone’’.

The police inspectors who were transferred to their own districts by the government had first approached the State Administrative Tribunal and later moved the High Court. The High Court, in its orders, stated that Hyderabad fell under Zone-6 (which includes the districts of Nizamabad, Mahaboobnagar, Medak, Nalgonda and Hyderabad).

Talking to mediapersons here Saturday, senior Congress leader and MLC KR Amos maintained that the apex court’s judgment would be applicable only to the police department, and if the `free zone’ logic were extended to other departments it would go against the presidential orders.

Meanwhile, TRS Assembly Floor Leader Etela Rajender has demanded that the State Government call an allparty meeting and constitute a Cabinet sub-committee to discuss the issue. He warned of the revival of the 1969 Telangana agitation in the region if the “free zone’’ was made applicable to all other departments. The State Government should immediately act on the issue and take steps for its non-implementation, he added.

The TRS leader said there was a need for the government to adopt three zones — Telangana, Rayalaseema and Andhra zones — to do justice to the people of the regions concerned. He also urged the Government to take measures for total implementation of GO 610, and to adopt a “fair share system’’ in respect of State Secretariat staff.

Senior BJP leader Ch Vidyasagar Rao also called for an all-party meeting on the “free zone’’ issue. Telangana Employees’ Union president Vittal has said the Supreme Court’s verdict would do injustice to Telangana employees. There was scope for sharpening of “regional differences’’ if the Court verdict was implemented. The union was going to file a review petition in the apex court on the issue, he added

Source: http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=%E2%80%98City+is+free+zone+only+for+police%E2%80%99&artid=dvfNs3mPWDA=&SectionID=xAV59odivTs=&MainSectionID=xAV59odivTs=&SEO=&SectionName=BUzPVSKuYv7MFxnS0yZ7ng==

Sadar festival of Hyderabad

Sadar is unique festival of Hyderabad. The pride of Yadavs.
A photo feature of the special festival by L Vidya Sagar captures the pride of Yadavs and how dear it is to the Yadavs.

Festival for the buffalo- garlands of flowers & shells & tilak

Young & Old parade their decorated buffalo

Majestic buffalo- pride of a Yadav

Pride of Yadavs is all set for the parade

Traditional music to start Sadar festival.

Its Time for Yadav Sammelan

Yadav Ratna Sri Veerappa Yadav Giving traditional salaam

Buffalo Salaam! Salutes & Feats!!

Parade of best buffalo -Festival for young & old

Time for special skills! The feast of feats!!

Skilled Yadav & trained buffalo as hundreds cheer Vah Vah Yadav!!

The pride and festivity- Sadar

Commentary

Y S Rajasekhara Reddy: A Political Appraisal

K Srinivasulu
Economic and Political Weekly, September 19, 2009 (p. 8-11)

Even after Y S Rajasekhara Reddy won power in Andhra Pradesh in 2004 by tapping the widespread anger about the agrarian crisis, he retained the patriarchal benevolence and ruthlessness of the factionist politics of the Rayalaseema region. While YSR instituted many schemes to address the needs of the poor, this largesse was also designed to feed a network of supporters. YSR’s rule marked a clear departure from the time-honoured “politics of accommodation” in the Congress: perhaps for the first time, a uniquely parochial Reddy regime was put in place throughout the state. Turning the new approach of the Congress in New Delhi to his advantage, YSR managed to marginalise opposition to his leadership and thus emerged as the most powerful Congress chief minister of Andhra Pradesh in recent times.

The tragic death of the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), along with four others, in a helicopter crash in the forested hills of Nallamalla on 2 September has suddenly altered the political landscape of the state and has left the major players in AP politics unsure about its fallout. The media blitzkrieg about the search for the missing helicopter helped build an emotion-laden hysteria among people, which surely contributed to the reported 200-odd deaths from cardiac arrests and suicides. While such immediate popular reaction to YSR’s unexpected demise points to his wide popularity it is also necessary to assess his politics in a more objective manner.

The most important contribution to YSR’s rise as a popular leader was from the padayatra he undertook in 2003 in preparation for the assembly elections the following year. Clad in a farmer’s clothes he walked 1,476 km through all three regions (Telangana, coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema) of the state. This padayatra enabled him to create a public image of a politician in touch with the grass roots. It also helped activate the Congress organization in local areas which had remained dormant as a result of the Congress being out of power for a decade. The padayatra not only enhanced YSR’s stature but was also crucial in evolving the winning slogans, strategy and alliances for the legislative and parliamentary elections of 2004.

Padayatra

The gross and visible neglect of agriculture and the rural economy by the Telugu Desam Party government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu was the context which contributed to the success of YSR’s padayatra. The Andhra Pradesh countryside was experiencing an unprecedented agrarian crisis at that time, with a large number of suicides among the weavers and farmers being symptomatic of its gravity. It was this crisis that YSR tried to articulate through his padayatra. In alliance with the Left and the Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS), the Congress’ election pitch promised to address this rural distress. The added promises of sympathetically addressing the Telangana state issue and of peace talks with the Maoist groups saw the Congress back in power.

Once in power, YSR sought to put in place an elaborate agrarian and welfare policy regime. Agricultural loan waiver, free electricity and input subsidies to the crisis-ridden farmers and the construction of major irrigation projects were important components of the Congress policy package for the farming sector. There were measures related to health, housing, pensions, education and a push to national schemes, specially the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. These measures became possible, partly because of the increase in the revenue of the state government due to expansion in economic activity during the growth years after 2005 and the increase in tax revenue as percentage of gross state domestic product (GSDP) from 5.2% in 1995-96 to 10.1% in 2007-08. These provisions were instrumental in giving a pro-poor and caring image to the YSR-led Congress government.

Decline of Public Services

If this populist image of being a munificent provider of succour to the poor and needy helped YSR’s government gain legitimacy among the masses, then its developmentalist image, built up by pumping massive investments into irrigation projects, roads, bridges, flyovers, etc, catered to its support base among the rich and powerful. These helped the regime build and strengthen its networks with contractors, builders, real estate developers, corporate operators of various hues and they became the support structure of the regime. Even the health schemes which offered corporate hospital treatment to the poor arguably benefited these corporate interests more than the poor patients as hundreds of crores from the budget meant for public health were diverted to pay insurance premia to the private sector. It can be stated with some confidence that the public health system in Andhra Pradesh suffered serious neglect under the Congress government.

SEZ Factor

The development activities like irrigation projects and the special economic zones (SEZs) were singled out by the opposition and activists for being mired in corruption. Andhra Pradesh, with 57 notified and 99 formally approved SEZs, has acquired a dubious distinction of being the leading state in terms of the number of SEZs. The proactive role of the government could be gauged from the fact that 30 of these SEZs have been developed by the state’s industrial investment corporation itself and some more by other government agencies. While as many as 95 SEZs are related to the IT and IT-enabled services sector, the number of multi-purpose SEZs is just eight. Most of these IT/ITES SEZs, instead of attracting new companies, have only resulted in the relocation of the old ones for availing tax incentives. This has raised serious doubts about their avowed role in advancing industrialization and they have assumed notoriety as means of land acquisition by dubious means. The resultant allegations of land scams and the large-scale displacement of rural population, especially by the irrigation projects, have resulted in protest movements emerging in many places. It is a sad commentary on the political parties that despite wide-spread popular discontent on this issue, there was no recognition, let alone articulation, of this in the electoral discourse. As a result, the popular discontent articulated by these movements, in some places supported by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil rights groups, remained localised. The allegations of corruption and scams, despite the fact that they were serious in nature, massive in scale and with prima facie evidence in some, thus remained abstract and could not impinge on YSR’s political fortunes.

The YSR regime responded to these charges with blatant disregard and recklessness. During his five years in power, YSR systematically cultivated a political culture of intolerance and highhandedness. If the Naidu regime perfected the art of manipulation in dealing with its own party men as well as the opposition, then YSR’s style exuded crudity and ruthlessness. He allied with the TRS and helped engineer a split in it, thus contributing to its marginalisation. He called the Maoists for talks (though he never personally appeared to be enthusiastic about them) but paved the way for their disappearance from the state. The media was also not spared. The media in AP, it should be noted, is highly politicized and divided along party lines. Thus, the media houses loyal to the other side were pursued ruthlessly till they moderated their stand. If his aggressive populism left not much space for the opposition, his gladiator style politics left them defenceless.

Intolerance of Dissidence

The most visible success of YSR has to be seen in his handling of dissidence in his own party. Historically, rival groups have always prospered within the Congress, however powerful the incumbent chief minister may have been. This feature has been both the strength and weakness of the party: strength when they, operating within certain limits, provided an internal corrective mechanism and weakness when they took the form of open factional war, as often was the case. It is the latter that often made the Congress a target of public disgust and opposition’s ridicule and was one of the major contributors to the rise of the Telugu Desam in the 1980s.

As someone who, for most of his political life, acted as a centre of such dissidence, YSR understood it better than anybody in the party. He thus focused his attention on dissidents in his party. Region and caste have been the traditional basis of factions in the state Congress. The emergence of the TRS caused a sense of insecurity among Congress leaders about Telangana and led to a vocal group consisting of senior and middle ranking leaders articulating the demand. YSR managed to effectively silence the Telangana demand within the Congress by neutralising their access to the “high command” of the party in Delhi and then rendered the TRS ineffective.

Control over State

YSR’s rule marked a clear departure from the time honoured “politics of accommodation” which characterised the Congress in AP. The party, though dominated by the Reddy community, has been known to aim at social balance by providing representation to different castes and communities in the party and the government. This was a result of caste being the basis of factional pressure. YSR blatantly violated this tradition and, perhaps for the first time, put in a uniquely parochial Reddy regime by giving positions of substantial power, both representative and nominated, to the members of this community. Despite this, the fact that other factions in the Congress could mount no visible resistance demonstrates the effective manner in which he curtailed their power. In this YSR was significantly helped by the changed manner in which the Congress in New Delhi under Sonia Gandhi has dealt with its provincial party units. Unlike earlier, when there were frequent intervention in the functioning of the provincial party and government, the Congress “high command” seemed inclined to allow the latter to function on their own unless matters reached a crisis. Turning this to his advantage, YSR managed to marginalize and suppress opposition to his leadership from caste and region-based factions and thus emerged as the most powerful Congress chief minister of AP in recent times.

If the cultivated self-image of being a generous patriarch who would go to any extent to fulfil the popular aspirations constituted one facet of his persona, then his intolerance of any form of the opposition, criticism and dissent whether from the opposition parties, media or within his party was evidence of his authoritarian personality. His intemperate behaviour towards his opponents, within the assembly precincts and outside has often been commented upon. After his re-election in the 2009 elections, he worked out a strategy to decimate the opposition by co-opting their active elements within the Congress. The media christened it “Operation Akarsh” (attracting: the members of the opposition into the Congress) and YSR boasted that by the next elections, there would be no party left capable of mounting any challenge to the Congress in the state. Rather than address the charges of corruption and cronyism levelled by the opposition parties, YSR’s method was to decimate the opposition parties to stave off challenges to his rule. He used the attractions of office and the blunt edge of government power to bring key opposition figures into the Congress and neutralise the rest. These were a clear demonstration of his scant regard for democratic norms and principled public life.

Rayalaseema Tradition

The coexistence of benevolence and ruthlessness may appear to be paradoxical, but when seen in the proper historical and social context of the political culture that he had grown up in, their interlinkage would become apparent. Kadapa district of Rayalaseema is known for violent factionalism whose ancestry is traced back to the palegallu (administrative -cum- military chiefs bestowed with the responsibility of law and order and revenue collection) of the Vijayanagara empire. These chiefs later transformed themselves into warlords. Over six decades of electoral politics, this region has evolved a distinct culture of factional feuds and violent end of the rival as the only mode of conflict resolution. The culture of tolerance, dialogue and accommodation is alien to this society. What governs the world of Rayalaseema factions is generous patronage of the leader and unstinted loyalty of the followers: loyalty is weighed in terms of the propensity to violence and readiness to sacrifice, including one’s life, and it is reciprocated by an indubitable assurance of support and generosity of the leader. The Telugu cinema directors and producers have found this world to be very fascinating and its celluloid representation quite lucrative. As a result we now have a separate genre of Telugu cinema known as “faction” films popular for their numbing portrayal of violence and destruction, which only help strengthen the culture of benevolence for followers and dependants and ruthlessness for opponents.

Having grown up in the political culture of Rayalaseema factionalism, YSR was very much part of it: his hunger for power, intolerance of any vacillation in his followers’ loyalty and his known trait to defend and protect “his men” almost by instinct, daring any consequence, were evidence of this. Even after he grew in stature YSR did not eschew this political culture.

In this context one is reminded of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent comment, in response to a query on the present bickering in the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, that emphasized the importance of a stable opposition as a prerequisite for a vibrant democracy. YSR by conviction and actions was antithetical to this view. If his success in marginalizing dissent within his party and government by stuffing them with his own men was quite visible, then his efforts in engineering political migration from opposition parties and his challenge to “finish” the TDP were quite illustrative of his warlord like posture. The persona of YSR happily combined images of being a benevolent provider and a determined pursuer of power. The patriarch’s aggressive pursuance of these images in his second innings would even otherwise have proved to be his autumn precisely because of the sheer burden of their contradictions.

K Srinivasulu (srinivasulukarli@gmail.com) teaches political science at Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Commentary

Andhra Pradesh
Beyond Media Images

K BALAGOPAL
Economic and Political Weekly, June 12, 2004 (p 2425 -2429)

Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the new chief minister has given the impression of being a man who cares for the classes neglected by Chandrababu Naidu’s model of development. Whether that is really so, is extremely doubtful. That those classes have reposed trust in the Congress Party under his leadership is clear: the issues of irrigation and employment appear to have contributed to the defeat of the Telugu Desam Party, augmented by the desire for a separate state in the Telangana region. Having realized his debt to the dissatisfaction, the new chief minister has already promised heavy investment in major irrigation projects and free power to farmers. And as for Telangana, YSR has made no secret of the fact that he has neither any understanding of the cause nor any sympathy for it.

Chandrababu Naidu’s defeat is the kind of event that lends itself so well to analysis by hindsight that the effort would be too tiresome. In any case, analysts attached to the Left parties have done that as ably as hindsight alone permits, and there is no need to add to their wisdom (by which it is not intended that they are altogether wrong). In fact, Naidu (or ‘Babu’ as he is known to his admirers in the state) is a classic instance of a phenomenon that the west is probably already very familiar with, but we are only just waking up to: a pervasive media creates a celebrity out of almost nothing, and then calls in experts to explain why its creation turned out to be nothing. Chandrababu is merely an ambitious political schemer who has managed to con quite a lot of intelligent people because he knows that their hunger for the image he has put on – a third world politician in the mould of a corporate executive spewing IT jargon and the verbiage of the World Bank’s development policy prejudices – is too acute for the normal functioning of their other senses.

This is an effort, in part, to introduce his successor. For if someone does not do so now, a new myth could soon be in the making, and if the analysts of Left parties participate in its creation, as a homage to coalition politics, one may have to spend a lot of time disabusing the public of it. It is so easy to clothe Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, MBBS with the image of the good doctor who has turned to politics to cure society, that even without the help of such expertise, the media may itself involuntarily do so. Reforms with a human face, which appears to be the current slogan of the Congress, suits the image so well.

The man is anything but a vendor of humane visages. His rise in politics has been accompanied by more bloodshed than that of any other politician in this state. Not bloodshed for some avowed ‘higher cause’, but bloodshed for the narrowest possible cause: the rise of one individual to political power and prominence. The recent elections may very well have meant many things in terms of popular aspirations, and one has no desire to be cynical on that score. But in the matter of the change of helmsmen, it has merely replaced a man who would find nothing too crooked if it is in his political interest, with one who would find nothing too brutal. And for both, the goal is the same: Power. Such precisely are the men neo-liberalism wishes to find in power in countries such as ours which it wants to subordinate to its logic and interests. It would be imprudent to regard this as an irrelevant consideration on the ground of the Congress Party’s avowal of a ‘human face’, for firstly that expression has no precise meaning, secondly Congressmen are known to be capable of changing course mid-stream, and thirdly India’s rulers irrespective of party have knowingly put themselves in a position where they have little leeway in matters of policy.

YSR (as he is known in short) belongs to Cuddapah district of the Rayalaseema region of the state. His constituency, Pulivendula, exhibits a most distressing topography: endless stretches of nude soil studded with gravel and relieved by rocks that are even more bare. It is watered, using the expression figuratively, by the Chitravati, a tributary of the Penna (called Pennair in most maps), itself hardly a river worth the name. Today YSR wishes to be seen as a politician who has responded to the needs of farmers and is determined to do well by them, but in the nearly three decades of his political life, he has not been instrumental in adding one acre of assured irrigation to the parched lands of the constituency that has again and again returned him or his brother (when YSR chose to go to parliament instead) to the state assembly.

His father Raja Reddy was, to begin with, an ordinary farmer and a small time civil contractor. He got converted to Christianity in the days when even upper castes thought there may be material benefit in doing so, and was ostracised by the Reddys of his native village, Balapanur. He shifted to Pulivendula, the tahsil headquarters. He quickly made a name for himself as a rough and violent man with whom one had better not get into a quarrel. To understand how Raja Reddy took advantage of that and paved the way for his son’s rise in politics, one must know something about Rayalaseema.

Viewing Rayalaseema

The Rayalaseema districts of Andhra Pradesh are known for severe water scarcity. Though as a matter of convention the four districts of Anantapur, Cuddapah, Kurnool and Chittoor are said to comprise the region, in physical, social and historical terms, only the Madanapalle division of Chittoor district can be talked of in the company of the other three. The rest of Chittoor is in every sense, including average rainfall precipitation, a distinct entity. The other three districts have an average annual rainfall of 618 mm, which is among the lowest in the country. They lie in the basins of the Tungabhadra and Penna rivers, which popular memory associates with bounteous waters once upon a time, but are today mere apologies of streams. The catchment of these rivers gives only a moderate yield, much of which has already been dammed, rendering the river-beds dry along most of the length of the rivers. But the canals from the dams serve only about 4 per cent of the cultivable land in the districts.

The major irrigation source of Rayalaseema, however, used to be the excellent system of tanks constructed by the Rayas of Vijayanagar, from whom the region gets its name. Like the rulers of Hyderabad and Warangal to the north, the Rayas of Vijayanagar got constructed a system of tanks all over the region to husband the scarce water resources and channel them to the fields. Indeed, most of the kings who ruled the various parts of the Deccan, and not merely the Telugu country, built such tanks to provide water for drinking and irrigation to the populace. A characteristic of the irrigation tanks of Rayalaseema is their huge size, probably because rainfall there is even more scarce, and demands even more comprehensive husbanding of water than elsewhere in the Deccan.

This tank system, as indeed everywhere in the Deccan, is however in a shambles, now. Almost nothing has been done for their upkeep during the last several decades. Because of the denudation of the land around, even the slightest rainfall causes inrush of water into the tanks, breaching the poorly maintained bund. The breaches merit only the most cosmetic of repairs, and as a result, the tank bunds are but bundles of ill-repaired breaches. For the same reason, all the tanks are heavily silted, so heavily indeed that they look more like irregular-shaped football fields than irrigation tanks. In the days before chemical fertilisers, the silt was prized by farmers as a source of fertile topsoil, but now nobody is interested in taking the silt to fertilise their fields, and so de-silting, if it is to be done comprehensively, would be akin to a mass waste-removal exercise. As such, it is too costly for the funds governments are willing to spare for the upkeep of traditional irrigation systems.

The upshot is reliance on increasing use of groundwater, through deeper and deeper borewells. But this is a self-destructive game, for the deeper farmers dig wells in competition with each other, the deeper they will have to dig next time round. The scarce rainfall cannot sustain this technology- driven thirst for groundwater. In 2002, in the midst of the second successive year of drought, a middle class farmer of YSR’s Cuddapah district had dug a borewell 1,000 feet deep, and still did not find water. (“If only I had persevered a little more, I may have struck oil” was, however, the farmer’s only response to commiseration, for a sense of humour rarely forsakes farmers, even in the worst of adversities).

Violence-Prone Society

A harsh physical environment does not necessarily lead to a harsh social life – there is no such homology – but the peculiar history of Rayalaseema combined with the region’s scanty endowment has led to a violence-ridden society. The kingdom of the rayas was characterised by devolution of the power of administration, more particularly that of ‘law and order’, down to the lowest level. This was even more true of the border areas which were administered by men whom the British Gazetteers called polegars (‘palegadu’ in Telugu and ‘palayakkaran’ in Tamil). They (often) had small forts, and an armed retinue of men, with whose help they maintained order and assisted the collection of revenue. Except in the most well-administered periods, these men were not bound by any known rules of conduct, not to speak of anything resembling law. They behaved like – and in fact were – war-lords. With the fall of the Vijayanagar empire most of them became sovereigns over a handful of villages and incessantly raided neighbouring domains for booty and territory. It is said – though there is no hard evidence in this regard – that the villagers caught in this conflict sought refuge with village strongmen who could gather a retinue behind them and play the role of protector. But of course, when they did so, the villagers had to pay for the protection by living in accordance with the protector’s writ.

As the fall of the Vijayanagar empire was followed by conflict between the British Indian rulers and the rulers of Hyderabad and Mysore, much of which took place over the Rayalaseema districts, the warlords as well as any villager who could gather an armed group around him carried a double premium: the battling armies wooed them, and the local people too needed their help to protect them against the marauding soldiers from outside the region. At the end, by the time the British brought the entire region into their control by the beginning of the 19th century, there was left this residue of a social practice: men of the dominant sections would gather an armed gang around them to assert their power, enforce their writ in the village and fight off challengers to their power over society. While the polegars were mostly of non-cultivating communities such as boya and patra, the practice of establishing dominance and exercising power through the force of armed gangs became a characteristic feature of powerful landed communities, generically described as kapu (husbandsman) but mainly of the reddy caste in recent decades. The British, who successfully put an end to the polegars by a carrot-and-stick policy, found to their dismay that this residue continued to disturb their notion of rule of law. They christened these gangs ‘village factions’, a name that continues to be used to this day.

The typical village faction was that of the village headman, called reddy in Rayalaseema. That appellation today refers to a dominant caste which is present all over the state, and men of the caste tag on reddy behind their names. But that is a phenomenon of recent decades, more particularly the latter three-quarters of the 20th century. The word has a complex history, one moment of which is that it designated the village headman in the Rayalaseema districts, in the days when village administration was presided over by the institution of hereditary headmen. This reddy would protect his primacy in the affairs of the village with the most aggressive zealousness. Any challenger to his importance would have to contend with a violent response from him. Though we spoke above of a retinue maintained by such strongmen, it was not a permanent gang maintained only for fighting. Most of the retinue would be ordinary farmers or labourers who come to the aid of the Reddy when called upon to do so. They would, it goes without saying, benefit in matters where the reddy had the final say, but passionate loyalty of the reddy’s followers is a characteristic of village factions. Their attachment was never merely a matter of rational calculation.

The dominance of the reddy would often be challenged by someone in the village. He would invariably be either a big landowner, or an otherwise powerful man, e g, by virtue of his closeness to the ruler of the area. From about the time that the word reddy started signifying a caste and not just hereditary headmanship, it is seen that in most cases, the challenger is also a reddy by caste, though there have been important exceptions, especially where the militant boya community is numerous. That man would gather a group of villagers behind him and fight the group of the ‘reddy’. The people to gather behind him would include, of course, his kith and kin, his tenants and sharecroppers; it would include persons who have suffered at the hands of the ‘reddy’; it would also include persons who have conflicts of interest or ego with the followers of the ‘reddy’; it would even include people who are obliged to the challenger for their day to day life or livelihood, even to the extent of people who, by virtue of the village topography, have to pass by his house or fields to reach their own house or fields.

Once such a challenger emerges, or in the course of his emergence, street fights between the two groups break out at every conceivable instance. The slightest material interest of every member of the group has to be protected or realised by force, and the slightest injury to every ego has to be avenged by force. But everything turns around the primary interest: the leader’s pre-eminence in the village, his honour, his writ, his word. For this, lives are sacrificed in a spiral of killings. Every death has to be avenged with a death, every burnt house or haystack with a burnt house or haystack, and every devastated acre of land with a devastated acre. The implements of fighting in the old days were stones, sticks, and every implement made by the human race for taming nature and making it yield fruit. It was after the 1950s that crude explosives, crude firearms and lately more sophisticated weapons entered village factions. It is an interesting aside that at each stage it was the communists that were, in all innocence, responsible for modernising the weaponry of faction fights.

The village factionist of yore, as can be imagined, was hardly an epitome of rationality. By the time he was through with his energies he would also be through with much of the property he had: it costs a lot to fight court cases, look after injured followers, repair burnt down dwellings and replace hacked orchards, all to keep his manly pride and moustaches intact. But after the introduction of panchayat raj democracy and rural development works, the brutality of village factions acquired the sheen of instrumental rationality. It was quickly realised by the village factionists that the methods used by them to protect the elusive social prominence or importance, could be put to more practical use for rigging polls and winning Panchayat elections at the village or block level, and monopolising road and other public works contracts in the village. This started earnestly in the 1960s.

The next and natural step was for a leader to emerge from among the village factionists of an area or from a town nearby, who would gather support of all the powerful factionists of the area, create factionists to fight the recalcitrant, assist the faithful in defeating their rivals, protect their crimes and make it worth their while to indulge in crimes of violence on his account in addition to theirs, and make that the base of his rise in politics at the district level and beyond, and the guarantee of a monopoly of not small or local public works but substantial civil contracts. It took a new generation of men to see this possibility and realise it. YSR was one of the pioneers of this change, which has terrorised and devastated the social and political life of the Rayalaseema districts.

Communists as Catalysts

The communists played a peculiar catalyst’s role in all this. The undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) had some base in the Rayalaseema districts. Its leader Eswara Reddy was elected MP from Cuddapah on four occasions starting with the first parliament. It fought – or sought to fight – feudal domination in the villages, but had to contend with the culture of village factions. The communists, from that day to this, have unfortunately understood factionism as merely a rather violent form of feudal domination, which may only require a more violent response, and nothing more. That village factions divide all classes in the village vertically, from absentee landlords to the poorest labourers, which vertical division is accompanied by a degree of felt loyalty to the factionist at the top, thereby reproducing the animosity at the top all the way down the line, and that such a state of affairs is seen as the natural ordering of society by all classes, has never been adequately understood by them.

And so when the communists found it difficult to organise the masses to fight a feudal landlord, they encouraged and supported any upstart who was willing to challenge the landlord’s dominance. All that they achieved was to create a new factionist, who would discard the communists once his purpose was done. Pulivendula was dominated in the early years after independence by Devireddy Nagi Reddy (known as D N Reddy), a somewhat haughty landlord, mill owner, some time zilla parishad chairman, and some time MP. YSR’s father Raja Reddy was willing to take on D N Reddy, and the CPI assisted him by helping him to win the block level panchayat elections. Today, the CPI has all but left the district, but Raja Reddy’s legacy continues in the form of his powerful son.

Raja Reddy established his credentials as a man to fear by an incident that people still talk of, nearly 50 years later. The town of Pulivendula has a sizable colony of Erukalas, a scheduled tribe, some of whom were known for their unruly ways. They were despised but feared by the higher castes, though it is rumoured that D N Reddy was not above using their crimes for his ends. One day one of them, Oosanna, tried to steal the ornaments worn by a woman of the reddy caste in the bazaar. When the woman struggled, that man cleverly exclaimed that she was his wife and was being disobedient. By the time people realised he was telling a lie, he had slipped away. Later in the day, Raja Reddy reportedly caught hold of Oosanna, dragged him to a public place, poured kerosene on him and burnt him alive. This incident made Raja Reddy a feared man, and people became willing to gather behind him in his conflicts with established leaders. By and by he established immense dominance in the area.

But he lacked money of the kind that would sustain his further rise in politics. This problem was resolved by a combination of chance and brutality just about the time that YSR entered politics. Cuddapah has deposits of the mineral barytes, which was once upon a time not a highly priced mineral. One of the mining leases was held by Venkatasubbaiah of the balija caste. Raja Reddy joined him as a junior partner/ supervisor (it is not clear which), reportedly because Venkatasubbaiah believed he would be useful in controlling the workmen. Round about the mid-1970s, however, it was discovered that barytes has use in petroleum refining, and its price shot up. Raja Reddy wanted Venkatasubbaiah to hand over the mining lease to him and go. A prominent CPI leader and writer, Gajjela Malla Reddy, brokered a deal whereby Venkatasubbaiah would take Rs 11 lakh and leave the mining lease to Raja Reddy. Venkatasubbaiah refused, and was killed. The mining lease, passed into YSR’s hands.

For many years in the later half of the 1980s and the early half of the 1990s, YSR’s barytes mining operation was the subject of one scandal after another. Lease – or sub- lease, after barytes mining became formally the monopoly of the A P Mineral Development Corporation, only to be subleased to the same previous lessees – would be taken for a certain extent, but many times more land around would be mined. Even a piece of land on which stood a protected monument so notified by the Archaeological Survey of India was mined, and one and a half lakh tonnes of the mineral (priced at Rs 600 per tonne) was taken away by the time the government woke up and put a stop to it. And there was the case of a villager, Vivekanandam, whose private land of 1.8 acres was also sub-leased to YSR by the Corporation. Though that man went to court and obtained an injunction against the sub-lease, YSR continued with the mining and took away mineral worth Rs 5 crore. The maternal uncle of the said Vivekanandam, a retired government employee, Rajagopal, set out to Hyderabad, to express his protest to the then chief minister Janardhan Reddy, and to move the high court again. The old man was set upon by a gang in the middle of the state’s capital, and had his hands and legs broken. This was as recently as 1992.

With the money flowing from the barytes mines in his pockets, YSR was in a position to undertake the transformation of ‘village factions’ into full-fledged instruments of political and economic domination at the highest level. There were others of his period – the post-emergency breed of educated, intelligent and utterly cynical politicians – who made money from other sources, such as for instance excise contracts, and used that wealth in the same manner as YSR to rise to prominence in Rayalaseema politics. The money was used to buy the support of village factionists. The factionist would be helped to overcome his rivals and establish unchallenged power over his area of operation. If a factionist was too adamant and did not heed the call, a rival would be funded to rise against him. A lot of lives would of course be lost in the process, but then that was, for these gentlemen, a matter of no moment. Once a sufficient monopoly of control over the local factionists was established, the leader’s political-economic future was ensured. Elections would be concluded in his favour, and his muscle power would ensure that he monopolized all the civil/excise contracts he coveted. This sounds bland when stated in this fashion, but the process involved tremendous amount of violence and inaugurated a veritable regime of terror in the area.

Manipulation of Election Process

Political parties and programmes have meant nothing in Rayalaseema, more particularly Cuddapah district. The only distinction in that district has been: with YSR and against YSR. Those who are with him can be in his party or in any other party – not excluding the CPI – and similarly those who are against him. On more than one occasion he has exhibited his capacity to ensure that a candidate to the assembly from his own party who has got a ticket against his will is defeated by a candidate of his choice contesting on a Telugu Desam ticket. Elections in Rayalaseema have meant open violence on polling day to scare away voters and leave the field open to bogus voting, taking away the ballot box to stuff it with ballot papers stamped elsewhere, preventing voters of the rival candidate from entering the polling station, forcing voters to show the stamped ballot paper to the local factionist’s man before putting it in the box, and other acts of like nature.

Until recently, a rule followed by the Election Commission was that in the event of death of any candidate, the election would be postponed. Killing defenceless candidates to get the poll postponed is a method not unknown in the more violent parts of our country. Rayalaseema is no exception. In the assembly polls of 1989, YSR’s follower Nagi Reddy fought the Telugu Desam’s Palakondarayudu at Raychoti in Cuddapah district. In the parliament polls of 1985, Palakondarayudu, who was then a candidate for parliament, was unsure of the support of the two main local factions that ruled Raychoti town. So he is said to have got an independent candidate, Guvvala Subbarayudu killed and got the election postponed. He thus gained time to rope in the two factions, and succeeded in winning the election held later. In 1989, polls were held simultaneously for assembly and parliament.

Palakondarayudu was this time a candidate for the assembly. Apprehensive that he may repeat his victorious performance, YSR’s man Nagi Reddy set up a pliant man of their own faction, Avula Subba Reddy by name, as an independent candidate, and allegedly killed him the day before the election to get the election to the assembly postponed. It is inconceivable that this could have happened without the knowledge and consent of YSR. In the parliament poll that took place that day as scheduled, there was an orgy of violence in which five persons were killed in Raychoti town including a polling officer by name Ahmedullah. The polling officer was dragged out of the polling station and murdered. The Congress candidate was elected to parliament. The terror created by YSR’s group on that day was sufficient for his candidate Nagi Reddy to carry the day when the assembly poll for the postponed Raychoti segment was later held.

Parallel with establishing themselves in power by such means, these leaders set themselves up as representatives of the region who would fight the rulers of the state for justice to water-scarce Rayalaseema. It has been the tragedy of Rayalaseema that, unlike Telangana for instance which has a vibrant political climate that throws up activists close to the people, the same leaders who have devastated the region’s social and political life with their strategies of gang warfare have time and again doubled as saviours of the people. But as their interest is merely the furtherance of their political careers, such espousal is short-lived and fruitless.

For about three to four years in the early part of the 1980s, these leaders led major agitations for irrigation water to the region. They held lengthy ‘padayatras’ and boisterous protest meetings. YSR was among those in the forefront. But their interest tapered off once they succeeded in putting pressure upon N T Rama Rao to sanction the extension of the Telugu Ganga project to provide irrigation water to parts of Cuddapah district. Later, the Congress came to power in the state, and many of the agitators became ministers, but they did precious little for the irrigation needs they had agitated for. Subsequently the Telugu Desam Party came back to power again, but this time YSR took care not to be seen agitating for the rights of one region. He had aimed his sights higher. He would dislodge Chandrababu and become chief minister of the state. Power, and power alone has been his guiding light, at each stage of his career, much like Chandrababu. Given the peculiar nature of Rayalaseema society, brute force served YSR’s purpose in the initial stages, much as unscrupulous manipulation did in Chandrababu’s case. But once he set his sights on Hyderabad, he knew that other methods would have to be tried out, and he has been game for that.

He worked quite systematically towards this end and has succeeded. In the process he has given the impression of being a man who cares for the classes neglected by Chandrababu’s model of development. Whether that is really so is, to put it politely, extremely doubtful. That those classes have reposed trust in the Congress Party under his leadership is clear: all analysis as well as impressionistic views point to the issues of irrigation and employment as central to the defeat of the Telugu Desam Party, augmented by the desire for a separate state in the Telangana region. Economists too are agreed that poor growth of employment opportunities, and poor capital formation in agriculture, the latter mainly because of low public investment, are two among the negative characteristics of the Indian economy’s performance in recent years. Too categorical an analysis of voters’ preferences is a risky business, but it appears reasonable to suppose that the dissatisfaction generated by these factors lies behind the victory of the Congress. YSR realised it in the course of his preelection padayatra which brought him face to face with much dissatisfaction regarding issues on which – barring free power to farmers – he had never taken any stand till then. Having realised his debt to the dissatisfaction, he has already gone on record promising heavy investment in major irrigation projects, and free power to farmers, which will encourage private investment to the same end. If he has not issued any immediate policy statements in the matter of employment, that will be declared to be understandable because it is by no means an easy matter. And as for Telangana, YSR has made no secret of the fact that he has neither any understanding of nor sympathy for that cause.

But it is doubtful that he has any real convictions in regard to the first two issues too, other than the realisation that they have been useful instruments in his ascension to power. If freedom to all prisoners were to serve that purpose, he would equally readily have emptied all the state’s jails, without holding any philosophy of punishment commensurate with the act. These may appear to be points not worth labouring at length, and it may even be cleverly said, as the Hindi saying goes, that we are concerned that the fruit be a mango, and not that the tree be a mango tree.

But if correcting economic policy distortions is what the aspirations revealed by the elections are about, we must note that change in irrigation policy from Chandrababu’s exclusive espousal of drip irrigation to a more realistic programme is not sufficient by itself. Such change is not by itself inimical to the ruling policies being prescribed in the name of reforms. The whole gamut of the policies concerning resources, opportunities and governmental responsibilities will have to be addressed, even if they have not been voted about in bringing YSR to power. There is little evidence that YSR is committed to a different view of these matters than Chandrababu, or that he is willing to devise ways of standing up to the pressure that the World Bank and other instrumentalities of neo-liberalism have been exerting in these matters. Much of what he is now heard saying against Chandra babu’s brand of neoliberal economic philosophy he picked up in the run up to the elections, and was never part of his way of looking at the economy.

It is also to be noted that the forces distorting India’s economy to serve a variety of external interests inimical to those of the poor and needy, have not been content with prescribing any transparent economic policy imperatives at all to suit their ends. They have indulged in a number of devious measures behind the backs of the people, with the active connivance of the rulers. Chandrababu was a willing collaborator in this, and YSR is not proof against it. The economic philosophy ruling the world, namely that resources, opportunities and governmental assistance of all kinds are optimally distributed when they are put unreservedly at the service of those who can augment them with the most investment and generate from them the most income, is easily understood when it is plainly stated, and easily dissented from if one has the slightest conviction that progress should be everybody’s progress, not at some unspecified date in the future, but with reasonable immediacy. But that policy prescription has not been content with such transparent debates. It has sought to work itself into our polity by opaque devices and has succeeded wherever it has found local collaborators among those in power. Those who believe that YSR will resist where Chandrababu was willing are fooling themselves.
………………..