Monday, March 24, 2008

Require Good Leaders For Telangana

On Sunday, I went to a house warming ceremony of a relative here in Hyderabad and I was chitchatting with some of my relatives and naturally, the discussion moved to the issue of separate Telangana state. Most of my relatives present there have moved to Hyderabad from Andhra after their adulthood and they still have that penchant for a single state even though they sold off their lands there and settled down here for good.

Initially, I could able to justify separate Telangana to be carved our of Andhra Pradesh. But, when the topic moved towards the leaders, I became defensive and in the end had to admit defeat. Defeat not for separate state but who are the leaders who have the will and who can strive for the economic development of Telangana.

Of all the list of leaders who are in the picture right now, none of them are eligible enough to lead Telangana. If one person has started the separate movement because he was not made Deputy Chief Minister, other person is into this only to try to prove a point and get himself as "President" of India while other person is trying to become Governor of a State and the list continues. None of them are here for the development of the state. They are here only to cash in the sentiments of Telangana people.

Then I started looking at political parties on a whole. While the TRS, BJP and CPI are staunch pro-Telangana parties, Congress Party is in a "fighting mode" among its leaders while TDP and CPI(M) are completely against a separate state. TDP is saying that they will take "right decision at right time".

Then I started narrowing on each party. Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was formed when its leader K. Chandra Sehkar Rao (KCR) was denied the post of Deputy Chief Minister by Chandrababu Naidu Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Government. Some opportunistic leaders from other parties jumped into TRS. TRS leader, Narendra (he has a RSS background and he jumped from BJP into TRS) started a militant wing thus scaring people on region wise. KCR distanced himself from this as he saw some hidden Hindu agenda and he is not ready to sacrifice important Muslim votes as almost 30% of Telangana is Muslim. Narendra broke away from this party and started a separate party. Latest update is that he is trying backhand to make a comeback to his parent party, the BJP. People consider TRS as more militant and violent since its inception. TRS leaders are said to be open boozers which doesnt give a good name to the party.

BJP is the first national party which supported separate Telangana in their National Executive Meeting held at Kakinada (Coastal Andhra Pradesh) couple of years back. All their leaders are unanimous on the separation and they did their ground work really well. Their problem is they have only one legislature representing them in the 292 strong AP Assembly and they need to work hard in that direction. This party looks to have a better opportunity than other parties. Their parent, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) is pretty strong in Telangana. If they want to push Telangana, then they need to start conducting meetings and awareness campaigns to keep the momentum till the assembly elections slated next year.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) is only strong in couple of pockets in Andhra Pradesh and it cannot play a very important role in pushing for Telangana.

The less said about Congress Party is the better. Recently, Telangana political heavy weights went to New Delhi for an audience with Sonia Gandhi (Congress Party President). She kept them waiting for a whole week inspite of the fact that some of the leaders worked with Congress since the days of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. They had to come back to Hyderabad fuming (??). After lot of pestering, she allowed them audience last week and reports said that she gave a class to them and told them to stop bickering and talking about Telangana as it would give a negative impact on the prospects of Congress in the next elections. These so called leaders have now started fighting among themselves.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo, Nara Chandrababu Naidu rules it with an iron hand and doesnot let anyone to be second in command. There is no second rung leadership in the party and he never allowed dissidence in the party. While he balks about Democracy outside, he never let it happen inside his own party. Devender Goud, the TDP leader from Telangana had recently started to talk about Telangana. He is one of the most senior leaders of TDP. He was severely criticized by leaders from Andhra and Raayalaseema regions and even Naidu took a class of him. Internal democracy is completely put down in TDP and one day, it would only explode.

The Communist Party of India (Marxists) are against smaller states. They worry that if they support small states, someday, they have to give away Gorkhaland - part of West Bengal state which is ruled by the communists with an iron hand past couple of decades. They are not ready to give away their strong hold.

Before we expect a separate state, we need a good Leader to Lead us. The leader has to come out with a plan of action after achieving Telangana. Achieving Telangana is not a difficult task. What lay ahead is how to make sure it survives and beat the critics claims that separate Telaganites would eat rocks from the Deccan Plateau.

Till then, asking for Telangana (leave alone demanding) looks to be like shooting ourselves in the foot.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Vijay Vaidyanathan said...

What exactly is the necessity for a separate state?

If the leaders can govern properly, can't they do a good job whether it is telengana or Andhra pradesh?

A good government should ensure equal growth for all areas of the state and make the people feel like a cohesive unit. Am I right?

Hi, I just stumbled upon your blog and read thruogh a couple of your posts

8:19 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

vijay, where was the need for andhra and rayalseema to merge with telangana. When nehru was forced into uniting these states, he rightfully understood the motives of these people and declared "when the people of telangana want to separate they can." You are either very ignorant or pretending to be innocent.
you say "If the leaders can govern properly". No they wont and they didnt, and we dont trust them.

10:18 pm  
Blogger koppoal said...

I dont think there is scarcity for leaders in Telangana. The andhra media always shows Telangana leaders with negative shadows. Now People have reliased this and wont believe that KCR is not fit to lead the movement. I am sure under his leadership telangana will be achieved. No leader is clean these days, take CBN he jumped from congress to become son-in-law of wealthy NTR and finally he betrayed him. He distanced NTR family till he lost the 2004 election and dumped BJP after using them in 1999 election. YSR toured the state, had he become CM in 1999, do you think we would have gone for padayatra? no way... after becoming CM he started selling Telanagana Land for KADAPA developement.

8:05 pm  

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