Telangana polls: 'Betrayed' Gulf workers threaten to trip KCR in electoral arena

Representatives of around 15 lakh workers from Telangana who do menial work in various Gulf countries, often illegally, say there is tremendous anger in the workforce against KCR and his government.

The decision to field the distraught widows against KCR was taken in meetings organised by the Gulf Workers Joint Action Committee (G-JAC) in Sharjah and Ajman cities of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The G-JAC, a federation of 24 migrant associations from all Gulf countries, has urged members of workers’ families in Telangana to defeat KCR and other members of his BRS contesting from constituencies in the migrants’ corridor in the assembly elections next month in the state.

The representatives say this is the biggest Indian contingent of poorly-paid workers from India in the Gulf after Kerala. They say there is not one village in northern Telangana that has not sent its children to the Gulf for work.

Rallying forces

The G-JAC is miffed because KCR had made umpteen promises to Gulf workers during the Telangana statehood movement. “It is not a token contest,” asserted Bheem Reddy Mandha of the Emigrants Welfare Forum.

Talking to The Federal from a workers’ camp near Ajman city, Bheem Reddy said this was an attempt to teach a lesson to a political party that ignored the plight of Gulf employees after being voted to power with their support.

“There are 25,000 to 30,000 Gulf workers in each constituency in old Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts. Their families have 75,000 to 90,000 votes which is enough to win a seat in a multi-cornered contest,” he said.

Stating that the campaign in the Gulf has been launched, he said that besides making appeals through social media and phone calls, physical meetings with workers at their camps were underway.

“We want to field mostly widows from Kamareddy, one of the chief minister’s two constituencies, to highlight how KCR’s lack of concern ruined their families and how easily the chief minister makes and breaks promises without regret,” Reddy said.

Sense of betrayal

Kiran Kumar Peechara of the Emirates Telangana Cultural and Welfare Association (ETCA) said the entire Telangana Gulf community feels cheated by a party that they had considered their own.

“There is a feeling of defeat among our community. There has been no Gulf policy as promised, no ex-gratia, no financial assistance. Now, we want to raise our voice by entering the assembly,” he told The Federal from Sharjah.

Kiran is considering contesting the Telangana election. He said they were in the process of identifying the candidates from the constituencies of Sircilla (where IT minister KT Rama Rao is the BRS candidate), Vemulawada, Balkonda, Nirmal and Korutla. He said G-JAC will organise public meetings as well.

Lakhs of youth from Telangana have chosen illegal routes with the help of dubious agencies, shelling out ₹25,000 to ₹1 lakh, to reach Gulf countries on visitor visas.

Very soon the temporary jobs the agencies arrange for them expire and they find themselves unemployed. This forces them to continue as illegal migrants doing odd jobs to clear the loans they took in their villages.

Many have died under miserable conditions and there are no arrangements to get their bodies back home, the representatives say.

Empty promises?

Most young men from poor families of Telangana are employed in the Gulf as drivers, gardeners, cleaners, shop assistants and domestic help.

Recognising the migrants’ strength, KCR, as the protagonist of the Telangana movement, coined a mesmerising slogan ‘Boggu Bai-Bombai-Dubai’ (coal mine- Mumbai- Dubai) to seek the support of Gulf workers and their families.

The slogan, which captured the pitiable condition of Telangana rural youth who had no option but to work in coal mines or migrate to Mumbai first and later Dubai for livelihood, reverberated in the region from 2001 and 2014.

And KCR promised the moon to the Gulf migrants. He said after the formation of Telangana, a fund of ₹500 crore would be set aside from the proceeds realised from the auctioning of government lands. He also promised ₹5 lakh ex-gratia to families of the deceased. He said a comprehensive Gulf policy would be released.

Alleging that KCR has forgotten not only the slogan but also whatever he promised, Bheem Reddy said the rosy picture KCR had painted prompted the Gulf workers and their families to take a plunge in the statehood movement. “Now KCR has changed the tone, exposing the ugly intent behind the beautiful slogan,” Reddy said.

Casualties of neglect

Singireddy Naresh Reddy, a former Gulf employee, said in the past nine years, nearly 1,800 workers from Telangana have died in the Gulf.

“The death of a bread-winner and debts shattered their families. Whatever help these families got was from sympathetic activists and associations,” said Naresh Reddy, now a sarpanch of Mannegudem, in Jagitial district.

Another activist, Pathkuri Basanth Reddy, who has brought home the bodies of many who died in the Gulf, said several employees committed suicide due to lack of support during distress.

Basanth even filed a PIL in the Supreme Court in 2020 against the Centre and 12 states including Telangana for not bringing about a comprehensive migrants policy. He said whatever help a few workers received from the government was because of constant pressure from activists and the media.

But Prof Dasoju Shravan, a spokesperson of BRS, dismissed the threat from the “so-called Gulf-JAC’ as inconsequential and the decision to contest against the chief minister as politically motivated.

BRS’ defence

“I urge the migrant workers not to fall prey to the politics of opposition parties. The self-styled Gulf Migrants Welfare associations are pawns in the hands of opposition parties,” he alleged.

It is time for the migrants to come back and become partners in Telangana’s development, he said. “The state government has ample employment opportunities. Construction and agriculture sectors are flourishing. The government has initiated skill development programmes. So, there is no need to suffer in the Gulf,” he said, recalling how IT and NRI minister KT Rama Rao has come to the rescue of Gulf workers in the past 10 years.