Bigger challenges lie ahead for YSR News Analysis

HYDERABAD: By getting the Congress high command to firmly put a lid on dissent by some party seniors over the line on Telangana, Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy has secured only a temporary relief.

A bigger and immediate challenge lies ahead when 16 MLAs and four Members of Parliament of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) carry out their threat to resign on March 6 and provide impetus to the emotive issue of separate Statehood and later take off on a bus yatra to garner support for their cause.]

Resignations


The resignations will also lend a new dimension to the issue by causing by-elections which the TRS is bound to portray as a referendum to justify its oft-repeated claim that a strong “Telangana sentiment” prevails favouring separate Statehood.

Till the Election Commission takes a call on holding by-polls to so many seats when general elections are due in 2009, all this is in the realm of speculation.

Some like BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu fear that the Congress could do a Karnataka here by postponing the polls citing the yet-to-be formalised delimitation process.

Harsh realities


In the event of by-polls, the TRS leadership will have to face harsh ground realities as anything less than a sweep of all these seats will be interpreted by its detractors to mean that the Telangana sentiment is confined to pockets.

This is where Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy feels that the Congress is sitting pretty.

He is confident that the TRS will find this task difficult since the performance of some of its MLAs is perceived by voters as less than satisfactory, especially in South Telangana districts where the ‘sentiment’ is not considered very strong.

Dr. Reddy explained as much when he presented his views to the Congress Core Committee meeting in New Delhi on February 5.

Solution


While giving his assessment of the Telangana issue, the Chief Minister outlined the Congress party’s strengths and weaknesses from the viewpoint of elections, the naxalite angle and that development and not separation was the solution to Telangana’s problems.

That the Congress high command endorsed his line was evident when it agreed to constitute a committee to supervise development of Telangana.

Different treatment


In contrast to the opportunity given to Dr. Reddy to present his case to AICC president Sonia Gandhi and Congress Committee members Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior leaders Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil and A. K. Antony, Telangana Congress leaders received a different treatment.

During their six-day long sojourn in the capital, they could not get the ear of Ms. Gandhi though they met AICC leaders individually.

This rebuff was, however, no indication that the AICC had foreclosed its options on Telangana but as a strong pointer to its thinking that it would not be pushed around or hustled into taking instant decisions.

It was firm that it would not upset the Congress applecart with the bifurcation of the State when elections are just one year away.

KCR upset


Although Congress Working Committee member G. Venkataswamy hid the leaders’ feelings by expressing optimism that the AICC would indeed make commitments that will take shape in 2009, TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao was upset over the way Congress seniors were treated.

He said as much at the Karimnagar rally on February 9 when he described the inability of Ms. Gandhi, to give the seniors an appointment as “an insult to the people of Telangana.”