Four years are over since the formation of separate Telangana but the unsettled issues surrounding that historic occasion refuse to take a back seat in the election season.
In the 2014 elections, the Telangana parties tried hard to take credit for bringing separate state while the AP parties spoke of injustice done to the residual state. It is now clear that in the 2019 polls in the twin Telugu states, the political parties will leave no stone unturned to recall the incidents and aspects of AP division once again in their bid to put their rivals in a disadvantage.
The Telangana political scene is indeed unique going by the fact that the talk statehood captures the imagination of all parties and all sections of people even now. This is apparently why all parties there talk more of statehood incidents rather than reconstruction and development. Given any chance, TRS Karimnagar MP Vinod Kumar narrates the whole story of how KCR’s leadership and TRS party led the state formation agitation in those days even when Congress and other parties’ leaders dared not talk about their aspirations in favour of statehood in those days. Vinod recalls how KCR kept the statehood demand alive all through by resigning from his MP seat and getting re-elected thanks to popular demand in favour of Telangana. He also points out how KCR went on Deeksha (fast unto death) in 2009 when the Congress High Command nearly agreed for statehood but withdrew at the last minute due to interference from that party’s Andhra leaders.
All this came to the fore once again after Congress national leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad began talking more of their party’s main role in making Telangana dream come true.
Though TRS continued pre-Telangana struggle for over 13 years, it was ultimately the Congress that was in power at the Centre at that time that gave it the final opportunity to grant separate state. On the other hand, the masses and common people would only remember the leaders and parties who waged prolonged struggles and who filled their everyday thoughts. No doubt, once again the next election campaign will see an increased effort by rival parties to invoke Telangana name and seek to take advantage over others.
It is a totally different scene in Andhra Pradesh as both national parties, Congress and BJP, are not the front runners for power in next elections. TDP is seeking to capitalise on the general belief that BJP government at the Centre did not bother to give special status to AP in the past four years. In fact, it is the YCP led by Jaganmohan Reddy that kept the issue of special status alive by saying that only this status would help bring tax cuts to boost industrial development thereby creating countless job opportunities in the residual state. Indeed, the need for development and jobs was greatly felt among the AP people considering the fact that their state was separated with no capital city of its own and with no planned resources at hand.
One should remember that all sections of people in AP regions agitated against division at that time and it even forced most Congress party leaders to openly oppose Telangana formation against the wishes of their party high command. AP people were still feeling that injustice was done to them at the time of division and also afterwards as there has been no expected helping hand from Centre in development and job creation aspects.
BJP national leaders are talking in terms of using their magic formulas to come to power in AP just as they have done in Arunachal Pradesh and other states. The well-educated and strongly established regional parties in AP may prove BJP wrong if it sought to grab power on its own. If there is any understanding with Jagan or Pawan, the BJP might as well spring some surprises that TDP should be concerned about.
All said and done, the long shadow of Telangana will cast once again in the twin states thus pushing pressing people’s issues to the background.
