A 29-hour fast in Hyderabad is what former Congress ministers Ponnala Laxmaiah and DK Aruna are sitting on to protest Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision not to make their political akhada – Jangaon in Warangal and Gadwal in Mahbubnagar respectively – into new districts. The KCR government plans to increase the ten districts to 27 by Dasara this year.
For the past many months, Jangaon in particular has been on the boil, upset at its credentials to be given district status being given the cold shoulder. They have been organising blockades on the Hyderabad-Warangal highway and courting arrest. Laxmaiah, who represented the constituency till his defeat in the 2014 elections, believes the decision was taken for political reasons.
Laxmaiah points out that KCR is going back on his word. “In 2014, he had announced that Jangaon will be the 11th district in Telangana. But now districts have been formed without any scientific basis and only to ensure political advantage in each new district for the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti. We want a judicial commission to decide on the new contours of districts in Telangana and not according to the whims and fancies of one person,” says Laxmaiah.
Aruna fears she will get politically marginalised if Gadwal is not made into a district. She has been emphasising Gadwal’s stature as a major textile town in Telangana, famous for its sarees, to buttress its claim to become a new district. “The Telangana government’s reorganisation is unilateral, unscientific and anti-people,” says Aruna.
Telangana Joint Action Committee chairman Prof Kodandaram also has opposed the reorganisation exercise, saying there is lack of clarity on the criteria followed for division of districts. The criticism seems valid at least in the case of division of Warangal district, where Hanamkonda which is a twin town of Warangal is being hived off as a separate district.
Jangaon is being denied district status and part of it is going into Siddipet and part of it to Yadadri, two new districts that are politically important. Siddipet is represented by KCR’s nephew Harish Rao and Yadadri is being developed as the Tirupati of Telangana, with a large number of politically powerful people have invested in land between Hyderabad and Yadadri.
KCR however, has clarified that the final word on division of present-day Warangal district has not been said yet. “The government is not going unilateral on Warangal and Hanamkonda. The public can report to the district collector about their grievances and demands. The new districts will be created only on grounds of administrative ease and convenience to people apart from consideration of area and population,” says KCR.
While the draft notification of the new districts and their contours were released on August 22, with 30 days time given to everyone to voice their opinion. No one disputes the need to create smaller administrative units, where Rs 100 crore rupees will be allotted to each district to create infrastructure.
KCR hopes with the reorganisation of districts, he will be able to put pressure on the Election Commission and the Centre to undertake the exercise to increase the number of assembly constituencies also from 119 to 153, so that he can accommodate all the turncoats who joined the TRS after 2014.
