Andhra Politics - Congress ;TDP;PRP;TRS

Film actor and President of Yuva Rajyam, Pawan Kalyan had a bitter experience in the district of Karimnagar. Pawan had started his political campaign for his brother’s political party in the Telangana region and chose to start from the Karimnagar district. The first day of his tour was successful but on the second day he suffered a minor electric shock.

Pawan was delivering a speech to the public at Husnabad by standing on his vehicle which was moving at a slow pace. He was so engrossed in his speech that he did not realize that there was an electric cable over his head and as the vehicle moved forward, the cable touched Pawan’s head who then suffered a minor shock. Fortunately, he received medical help immediately and within minutes, Pawan recovered and continued his tour, this time a bit more careful!

This is an exact replica of the political situation in the state in 2004 before the elections, except for the role of TDP and Congress. In 2004, when TDP was ruling, all the opposition parties stood by Congress with the sole aim of getting TDP out of power, alleging that TDP has become an inefficient government.

Now, after five years of Congress ruling, the same oppositions parties (CPM, CPI and TRS) have joined hands with TDP and this time their sole aim to bring down Congress and the allegation on Congress government is high corruption. The leaders of all the opposition parties met here in Chandra Babu’s residence and have announced that they have all united and formed Maha Kootami (Great Allinace) and will bring down the corrupted Congress government in the next elections which are to be held in a few months.

Hope that this Maha Kootami will fare well and achieve its goal.

State Congress party which had been deliberating over the separate Telangana issue had final come out with a firm stand. The party opined that there is no need splitting the state and that balance can be stroked between the two regions of the state with proper planning.

Congress has come to power in 2004 elections by promising a separate state for Telangana but changed its word immediately after the elections. Though, they never denied the separate state possibility, they had playing ‘delay tactics’ and ruled the state for four and half years without giving a clear policy stand. Now that the next elections are impending in a few months, Congress finally broke the ice by declaring that they are not in favour of separate state and that the development activities they have undertaken in Telangana region will earn them their votes in the next elections.

Let us see how people will react to this bold move.

There is a great battle going on in the state Congress party and the venue is the capital city of the country, New Delhi. Two groups from the Congress party each with their own stand on the Telangana issue were invited by the party high command to discuss over the issue and arrive at a final decision.

Cheif Minister Rajasekhar Reddy and PCC chief D. Srinivas are the leaders of the groups with these opposing policy standings. Rajasekhar Reddy believes that there is no necessity for the party to make an announcement in favor of separate state and that the developmental activities in the region under his reign are enough to attract the people. D. Srinivas on the other hand, firmly believes that the people are dying for a separate state and that Congress will have to pay heavily if it does not take a favorable decision for Telangana.

So, this dispute has finally reached New Delhi and both the leaders are asked to appear at the high command and discuss over the issue and it is expected that a decision will be delivered tomorrow. Most likely, Rajasekhar Reddy will be the winner!

After years of deliberation, the Congress party has finally realized the potential losses it would suffer if it goes for the coming general elections alone. With opposition leader Chandra Babu forming a ‘Great Allinance’ in the state, Congress realized that it cannot sustain the upcoming elections without coalating with TRS party. As TRS leader Chandra Sekhar Rao did not yet declare that he would work with TDP, Congress is trying hard to attract him towards his party.

Right from the year 2004 in which Congress got into power at the state and the central level, TRS has been appealing for the formation of a separta state Telanagana. However, Congress never really considered this a big issue and kept neglecting TRS, even when TRS resigned from the Government. However, now that the elections are impending in a few months and TDP getting stronger day by day, Congress has realized the need to take quick steps in favor of Telangana before the elections.

The president of National Congress Ms. Sonia Gandhi has prepared the grounds in favor of Telanga and it was reported that the party would pass a bill for separate Telangana in the coming budget session of the Parliament to be held in the first week of February. This can be seen as a strategic move by Congress to take away all the credit for separata Telangana before the elections and this force TRS to work with them in the next general elections.

If this turns out to be true, TRS will have a tough time deciding about their future.

Undavalli Arunkumar is known more as a ‘foul mouthed’ creature than as a member of the parliament. He is the one who kindled the Eenadu-Government fight and made a big issue out of nothing. Around two years back, he started this huge fuss about the financial collapse and the risk of investments in the Margadarsi bank, which is a part of the Eenadu group of companies. At that time, the state government which was waiting for a chance to take a revenge on the Eenadu newspaper which exposed many government scams started encouraging Undavalli and this guy had successfully tarnished the image of Ramoji Rao, at least to some extent. However, he could never prove a single case against Ramoji Rao nor that Margadarsi did not pay back a single investor.

Now that the Satyam Software is exposed, people were expecting Undavalli to expect similarly as this scam was exactly what Undavalli had been talking for years and hoping to see in Margadarsi. Alas! Undavalli started supporting ‘Satyam Software’ and said that he did not want to make any comments about ‘Satyam fraud’ as this will create panic among the employees of Satyam and he also added that, though Satyam is financially exposed, it has many ‘land assets’ and the company can be easily saved using these assets.

So, the obvious questions for Undavalli are the following -

- Did you think that there are no employees in Margadarsi who will be panic struck by your baseless arguments?

- Don’t you know that Eenadu group, that backs Margadarsi Chit Funds has 2000 acres of land in Hyderabad?

The reason why Undavalli is supporting Satyam Software is more than obvious. His party men have investments in the company and are also remotely and indirectly related to this scam. So, Undavalli finds everything fair in this ‘already exposed scam’. But he wouldn’t admit that Margadarsi, in which he couldn’t find a single fault for the last two years,  is following good corporate governance.

This is the best example of the dirty demeanor exhibited by Undavalli Arunkumar  in many instances. Hope that he will not be elected back as an MP in the next general elections and save the state from this watch dog (he described himself as a ‘watch dog’!).

Interestingly, his own party men are disappointed with the barking of this watch dog and have suggested him to stop attacking Ramoji Rao and his group of companies. The parties seniors feel that Undavalli is the reason for teh strong retaliation their party faces from the Eenadu newsgroup. They believe that Eenadu would not have gone completely against them, if Undavalli did not irk its authorities.

Congress senior leader and state financial minister Rosaiah made some interesting comments about the current state of politics in the country. Rosaiah attended the Jana Chaitanya Vedika meeting on Sunday and talked to the media about the politics in the country. He clarified that he will not contest in the next election general elections but would continue working for the party as an ordinary member.

He then expressed his feelings about the degrading state of politics in the country. He said that money is playing the most important role in politics today and that he had this urge to quit politics since a long time. The reason for him continuing in the party is because he did not want to earn bad reputation for deserting the party when the party is in need of senior leaders.

He cited an example about a politician in Karnataka (he did not reveal the name) who spent 27 crore for campaigning in the recent general elections. Rosaiah said that he, who introduced a budget of 90k crore rupees was shocked at the figure spent by a single individual for campaigning. He went on saying that the current politics is so rotten that, even if Mahatma Gandhi comes back alive, he will be allowed to contest in the elections only if he has the financial potential to spend in the elections.

Is Rosaiah hinting something about the state of politics in his own party?

This is the current political scenario in the state

TDP + CPM + CPI

TRS - mostly towards TDP

PRP : Alone

Congress: Alone

Lok Satta: Alone

Lok Satta has made a statement yesterday that they are open to a coalition with any political party which is willing to work with them in the next elections. Lok Satta is a party built on high ideologies and is not a strong party from the view of Vote Bank. So, none of the parties is actually interested in coalating with this party.

However, Jaya Prakash, as a formality announced that they are open to coalitions with any party and laid some conditions. He said that any party willing to work with them should not distribute money or liquor to people at election time and also should not include any ‘free’ offers in the manifesto which are practically not possible.

It is clear that no major political party will dare to abide by these conditions given the current state of politics in the country. In the previous elections also, Lok Satta made a similar proposal to the political parties and none of the parties showed any interest in coalating with Lok Satta. Even now, none of the parties are willing to abide by these conditions and work with Lok Satta.

So, Lok Satta will have to contest alone in the next elections and may not even win a single seat. However, winning in the elections is not the ultimate aim of Lok Satta, at least in these elections.

After Satyam RamaLinga Raju openly admitted that he had committed a huge corporate fraud of Rs. 8000 crore, it is the turn of the politicians to sling mud on each other holding the opponent responsible for the Satyam collapse. Satyam Software had ditched all its investors by revealing that the company had been showing false accounts for the past few years. This is the biggest corporate fraud in India and is also termed as Indian Enron, as this is on similar lines as the Enron scam in United States.

After this incident, opposition leader ChandraBabu alleged that the ruling party should be held responsible for not being able to detect such a huge fraud in the initial stages. He also alleged that the chief minister had the knowledge of the on going fraud and never bothered to contain it.

Chief Minister YSR responded to these allegations in a rather aggressive way. He said that, it is Chandra Babu Naidu, when he was in the Government who supported and encouraged Satyam Computers. He cited the incident when Bill Clinton, the then president of United States visited Andhra Pradesh. At that time, CBN introduced RamaLinga Raju to Bill and also made him sit besides Bill Clinton on the same stage. The Chief Minister went on saying that the state Government has nothing to do with the Satyam scam and alleged that RamaLinga Raju is a close associate to CBN.

Chief Minister also added that he will order a judicial probe into the entire scam and will also review the various state projects given to the sister companies if Satyam Computers.

The results came as no surprise when Jaya Prakash Narayana was elected as the President of Lok Satta party. Lok Satta which had been a voluntary organization for more than a decade has recently registered itself as a political party and decided to contest in the elections. Though JP continued as the president of the party as long as the party was just a social organization, he had to contest with others for the same post after Lok Satta turned into a political party.

The elections for the post were conducted all over the state a few days back in which close to 1 lakh Lok Satta members participated to elect their party president. The counting has begun yesterday and of the 60K votes counted, JP showed a clear majority. Till now, Jaya Prakash secured 57K votes while the other contestants, DVVS Varma and Aakula Maharani got 4000 and 2500 votes respectively. So, even as the counting continues, it is clear that JP is elected the next President of Lok Satta.

 This election is seen by some as a political gimmick to convey the democracy in their party against other parties like TDP and PRP where there are no elections to choose the president of the party. Everyone knew that JP will win, but still they conducted these elections, just as a formality!