Congress is in serious trouble in AP now due to serious mistakes done by them in Telangana issue. Their prospects in General elections of 2014 look increasingly bleak. TDP which Congress tried to kill in Telangana areas is back with a bang with CBN tour. Party may lose almost of all the 33 MP seats in 2014. It is also set to lose Andhra Pradesh, the only big state which is under their individual rule. ( I am not taking PRP merger and MIM outside support into consideration here) No one should bother about what will happen to Congress which is responsible for most of the evils in India today. But what about the loss to Andhra Pradesh state and Telugu people? Almost 3 years of agitations cause immense damage to the economy and people. Congress and their proxy TRS tried to create animosity between people of various regions in the state and in case of Telangana they even succeeded in creation of a minor hard core hate/criminal gang which will haunt the state and people for years to come.
Who is responsible for this utter criminal actions of Congress. Why Congress party which is politically most cunning made such stupid mistakes one after another in a state which is most important for their national power. Apparently no one. Why is that? Telangana issue was created to contain and destroy TDP in 2004 and later used to for the same purpose in 2009 with TRS acting as 5th columnists. But it is clear that after the death of YSR the Congress lost the plot.
Who then took the political management of AP after YSR death and who was dealing with Telangana issue. Apparently no one. Or is it some one who can not be named or blamed. It is now clear that it is the second case.
The condition of the Telangana agitation before December 9 2009 is quite bad. There were hardly any people in the meeting place when KCR was arrested and he stopped his agitation by taking juice before the TV Cameras only to restart the drama under threat of naxal front activists posing as students of Osmania University. The unholy alliance of TRS with naxal front organizations to provide muscle power and blackmail money came to roost. Yet come December 9 there was an announcement which no one, not even the State Chief Minister expected or known beforehand.
AP state CM was on record saying that he has told the Home Minister that any resolution in State Assembly will not be passed. There are very strong grounds to believe that many leaders, who in public supported division of the AP, privately informed the CM that they are against the division. No one will believe that IB and other central agencies are not knowing this under current of opposition to the division of the state. It is widely reported in the press that a very senior IB official had visited Hyderabad and reported to Home Ministry that about a lakh of people are going to converge on Hyderabad and if there is no announcement of Telangana state formation, there will be serious bloodshed. No one knows who is mistary agent of IB, but in the end NSA who was looking after the Telangana issue at that time and on bungling of Telangana issue he was kicked out. removal. Pranab Mukharji who was the minister handling this matter was not in station or not available for prior consultations before the announcement and once again as per the reports he was told by Chidambaram that all the political leaders in AP accepted the division of AP and hence they are going to make the accouchement.
Further there is clear evidence that CM of AP was only told that he has to go back to Hyderabad and visit KCR in hospital and offer his lime juice under a promise that he is invited to Delhi for consultations with Union Government. CM came to know about the division of state only in Hyderabad Airport and probably dejected of being cheated/misinformed went directly home without visiting KCR in Hospital. What then happened between the time CM left for Hyderabad and the midnight announcement of Chidambaram that resulted in the change of policy of this magnitude?
The answer lies in the political requirement of the Congress. The next day of announcement was Sonia’s birthday. Congress naturally wanted to use this dramatic announcement to project the division of AP and Telangana as her gift for Telangana people. It is open secret that TRS was a creation of Congress to counter TDP in Telangana region and KCR was already in board its merger with Congress immediately after that announcement. So Congress will be an unstoppable force in Telangana area. All the problematic people be it Chandra Babu Naidu or Jagan belong to non Telangana areas and there is virtually no one leader or party which can give any opposition of Congress in Telangana at that time or in future had the division happened as per the plan.
In Non Telangana areas TDP which foolishly supported creation of Telangana in 2009 elections can be accused of forcing the division of AP before the rest of the AP. Jagan can also be accused of supporting Telangana creation as almost every one was on record for the division of AP. No leader can escape the problem of division of AP. So politically no loss is there for Congress in division of AP with benefit and loss canceling each other. Further there are 4 more years in time to manage public opinion in rest of the AP.
But congress failed to understand the sub national feeling of Telugu unity and pride brought out with the emergency of TDP. The feeling of unity coupled with economic/financial interests of Telugu leaders in Hyderabad and united AP were shockingly ignored by Congress leadership. Further in spite of publicity there was no real consciences for division of the AP within the state. This is well known to them on December 9th itself when the CM of the day Rosayya told them that he can not assure them of passage of any resolution for division in the Assembly. Yet this terrible political mistake was made. Who are the main person or persons behind this fiasco? We do not know. But we can make some deduction.
The shock of the announcement created a serious backlash which could not be contained and soon it is clear Congress is looking losing 22 MPs due to resignations and the only big state in which have their own government. It for some time was even looking at loss of the UPA2 Government. Yet no immediately rectification was made. In fact, between December 9th and 23rd , there is near complete paralysis in Congress and UPA. This clearly shows that the decision was made at the top level and no one was courageous enough to tell her that she made terrible mess of the things. Lack of quick decision and follow up in fact has been the hallmark of congress handling of the Telangana issue which clearly shows a bunch of ignorant and incompetent people are to take the decisions at every time. Since we can not imagine calling people like Chidambaram and Pranab for all their faults neither ignorant nor incompetent. Therefore we can guess who was in charge of Telangana issue in Congress during December 2009 and who made the Telugu people suffer for almost two years with no end to the problem in site.
Further happenings of December 10th 2009 wherein huge number of TDP and Congress MLAs and few MPs resigned is the watershed in Indian political history. At least in AP after that day no political leader sitting in distant capital can force this kind of decision on people or even on their own party. I am sure that it took some time for Congress leadership to get out of this shock and start thinking. Even then a delay of 14 days is not logial considering the experience and capabilities of leaders like Pranab. In the end the December 23rd announcement was made. But by that time TRS and KCR in person gone out of control and the agitation which almost failed turned into huge political nightmare for congress. Once again a meeting was called on Jan 5th 2010 and later there was no follow up action leading to several tragic suicide dramas and innocent people getting killed. When Sri Krishna Committee given a report also there was endless amount of waiting period for its release and later on the steps to be taken on the report. In the end the no one knows if the report is officially accepted or not. This culminated in Sakala Janula Summe which failed miserably within a week of Kiran Kumar Reddy the new CM hand picked by Rahul on the recommendations of Azaruddin was given free hand.
We can all call this long periods of dithering and indecisiveness as some chanikyan strategy similar to one followed by P.V.Narasimha Rao. But is it? Now we are in a situation wherein Congress may not get even 5 seats in any Parliament seat. TDP is back in fight in Telangana now against all the efforts of Congress to wipe them out in 10 districts wherein TDP used to be quite strong. Chiranjivi is discredited and will not be in a position to transfer any votes of PRP and Jagan if he survive till next general election will only hurt Congress vote bank if something like that remains in the first place.
Judging from the above results, there is no policy or strategy followed by Congress in dealing with Telangana issue. It just sailed from one mistake to another. Each bad than the other. But who individually responsible for all this mistakes? No one is getting blame for destroying the party at least in next years time period. In congress when no one get the blame, it mean this mistakes were committed by the those who can not be blamed. After all it is they who had last say on all the matters in the party. Need I tell who are the person who destroyed AP economy and put the entire state back by at least a decade? We all know she is.
