‘Vikas’ is KCR’s poll pitch amid changing political scene in Telangana

Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao, or KCR, seems to be dishing out a new poll narrative to suit his political needs for the State election due in a couple of years. Unlike in the previous poll battles, this time, he may seek a positive vote in return for the ‘rapid development’ the seven-year rule of his party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is claimed to have delivered in the State.

This is what KCR, by drawing a comparison between Telangana and ‘sibling’ State Andhra Pradesh in terms of development, has allowed to come up in full display at his party’s Monday plenary in Hyderabad. The Telangana CM asserted that the per capita income in his State has reached ₹2.4 lakh, while Andhra Pradesh is lagging at just ₹1.7 lakh.

“When we were agitating for a separate State for our native region, the Andhra rulers at that time ridiculed that Telangana, if separated, will perennially reel under darkness for want of power. But what happened now? We are shining by ensuring 24×7 power supply and it is Andhra which is in darkness,” said KCR. His remark is a direct reference to the imminent power cuts that Andhra is staring at in view of acute coal shortages hurting power generation at its thermal plants.

Also read: Is lack of critical mass failing the BJP in Andhra, Telangana?

The Telangana CM also said he has been receiving hundreds of requests from the people of Andhra Pradesh, overwhelmed by his welfare schemes such as Dalit Bandhu, to expand his party into their State.

A consummate politician

The TRS patriarch is an enigma to friends and foes alike. Nobody knows what gimmick the 67-year-old lanky politician is going to pull out of his magic wand to catch his rivals off-guard. He has mastered the art of using jibes at his rivals in his native idiom and diction and delivering the masterstroke to finish them off at the right time, in the right context.

KCR got the powers-that-be at the Centre to deliver statehood for his homeland by playing up the regional sentiment to the hilt through a spirited and sustained movement. And, with the help of that sentiment, his party catapulted itself into power in 2014, with KCR in the saddle as the first Chief Minister of the country’s youngest State.

When he had to face the State’s next election, in 2018, the TRS chief was required to seek the people’s mandate based on his performance. In the run-up to Telangana formation, he had promised a Dalit Chief Minister, two-bedroom houses for the poor, two acres of land for all Dalits and jobs for unemployed youth. His government began to feel the heat of unrest in some sections for failing to deliver most of the promises.

But KCR deftly turned away the people’s attention and smashed the Congress-led Grand Alliance by using then Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP as a punchbag. Naidu was instrumental in forging the anti-KCR alliance in that election by bringing the Congress and the Left parties under a single umbrella.

KCR said that if the Naidu-led Grand Alliance was voted to power, the very objective of Telangana’s statehood would be defeated and the self-pride of his State would be pledged to Amaravati, the proposed new capital of residual Andhra Pradesh. The narrative had a magical effect on Telangana people, helping KCR’s party register a landslide victory.

Waning sentiment

In a triangular political setting, KCR, in his second stint as CM, is facing strong rivals in the BJP and the Congress. “KCR runs out of issues now as his oft-repeated and much played out regional sentiment has lost steam,” KB Chari, a Telangana-based psephologist, told The Federal. “It’s time for KCR to deliver and showcase his progress card and that is what he is trying to do now,” he added.

KCR is accused — by one-time associate Etela Rajender — of diluting the Telangana sentiment by embracing leaders from the Opposition parties, who opposed the separate statehood movement, into the TRS fold. Rajender was sacked from the cabinet for his revolt and he eventually joined the BJP to settle scores with KCR.

Among the Opposition defectors who got plum positions in the KCR cabinet were Gangula Kamalakar, Errabelli Dayakar Rao and Talasani Srinivas Yadav, who were earlier with the TDP, and Sabitha Indra Reddy, who went to the Assembly on a Congress ticket.

Targeting Naidu again is like flogging a dead horse. His Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was edged out of  the political landscape of Telangana after its lawmakers, leaders, cadres and even voters en masse shifted to TRS. In Andhra, too, Naidu lost relevance once his party was defeated in the 2019 elections.

KCR apparently does not want to extend his anti-Andhra rhetoric by being hostile to AP’s current Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. Naidu is a bitter rival of both KCR and Jagan. Therefore, the age-old philosophy of ‘enemy’s enemy is friend’ brought the duo together since the 2019 AP Assembly election. The TRS chief seemingly would like to retain the bonhomie with Jagan, keeping aside ‘sibling’ clashes over inter-State issues.

Mum on water disputes

KCR’s soft-pedalling with his Andhra counterpart conspicuously came in evidence at the TRS plenary, when he conveniently avoided a mention of inter-State disputes relating to sharing of river waters in his speech.

At the same time, KCR apparently sought to maintain a stoic silence on the fate of bifurcation-related promises like national status for Kaleshwaram project and Bayyaram steel plant that remain pending with the NDA government at the Centre. Nor did he even mention any of the prospects of his Federal Front turning into a reality before the next elections.

KCR attempted to float the Federal Front as an alternative to the Narendra Modi-led NDA government soon after the last general elections by meeting various non-NDA leaders such as Deve Gowda of Karnataka, DMK leader MK Stalin, and West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee. His current silence gives strength to speculations that he is getting closer to the NDA at the Centre, though the BJP is lurking at his doorstep back home.

The farm crisis in Telangana looms large as an offshoot of the NDA government’s decision to deregulate the agriculture market as part of its one-country, one-market policy. It hinders the States from procuring produce from farmers. In this backdrop, the TRS government prohibited paddy cultivation in Yasangi, or rabi crop season.

The KCR government in Telangana unleashed the irrigation potential in the State by building major projects like Kaleshwaram. Such a drive has brought 1 crore acres under irrigation, helping the State become a major paddy producer in the country. Yet, KCR remains tight-lipped on the NDA government’s restricted levy policy, inviting criticism from his rivals that he has surrendered to the Modi government.

Hyderabad-based analyst Raka Sudhakar, talking to The Federal, observed that KCR is left with no option but to be friendly with the NDA, as the prospects of building the Federal Front are dim. Also, the prospects of Congress emerging as an alternative to the NDA at the national level are bleak.

Raka sees a pan-Telangana appeal in KCR’s latest Andhra-Telangana comparative development models in a larger canvas aiming for the 2023 Assembly elections.