Andhra Politics - Congress ;TDP;PRP;TRS

Seven months before the election data it has become pretty apparent that no party will ‘rule’ this time. There is a high probability of ‘hung assembly’ in the next general elections and thus alliances have become very important for all the political parties.

Given the Congress, TDP and PRP and the three ‘big’ parties in the state, it has become quite crucial as to who will win the support of the remaining parties in the state. All the parties left no stone unturned in order to form a proper coalition and as of now TDP has the upper hand.

PRP, led by Chiranjeevi has tried very hard to form an alliance with the communists. However, the communists have denied this offer and decided to go with Chandra Babu Naidu’s TDP. The lack of political experience of Chiranjeevi and his party was clearly seen in the way Chandra Babu handled the situation and turned the communists to his side.

Now that the communists are gone, PRP is trying to ally with TRS, the other major party in the state. TRS president Chandra Sekhar Rao did not rule out the possibility of a coalition with PRP. However political observers feel that Chandra Babu will affect TRS also. If that happens Congress and PRP will have to contest alone in the next elections and TDP along with TRS and Communists.

We need to see hoe Chiranjeevi will handle this situation and attract the TRS leaders. PRP, though did not admit, is in dire need of a coalition and believes that going alone will severely affect their winning chances.

The recent terror attacks on Mumbai has led to several serious political consequences all over the country and Andhra is no exception. The Home Minister of the country has been forced to resign and Chidambaram appointed as the new Home Minister. It is very likely that the Chief Minister of Maharashtra should also ’sacrifice’ his seat.

Coming to Andhra, though not a direct impact there was an indirect impact. Given that Congress is ruling at the central level it is quite obvious that this party will be held responsible for these attacks. So, if elections are held in the near future Congress might have to bear the effect of these attacks.

So Congress has decided to postpone the elections in the state till April to buy itself some time to regain the confidence among people. Previously the elections were scheduled to be held in February 2008

Finally the nightmare has ended. Indian Army has completely sanitized the four locations that were attacked by terrorists on the 26th of November. Now that the situation is under control Indian Government and all the states have gone into retrospection. As it is done after every terror attack, discussions are on as to what steps need to be taken to contain terrorism.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has convened a meeting with the Home ministry and the police officials of the state yesterday. Hyderabad, the capital city of the state is a very likely target for a terror attack and has already suffered a couple of terror attacks. In wake of the Mumbai attacks, the government has decided to raise its own security force in the lines of the National Security Guards at the central level.

NSGs’ have played a key role in containing the Mumbai attacks. The new force being setup in the state will be called State Security Guards (SSG) and will follow the same high benchmarks in selection and training as the NSGs’. The Mumbai attackers reached the country from the coastline. As Andhra also has a long coast line the Government has decided to tighten the security along the coast line.

All the parties in the state realized the importance of being united at this critical stage and supported the steps being taken by the Government to contain terrorism.

As the Americans started giving Thanks to each other, India suffered one of the biggest terrorist attacks in its history. The Taj and Oberoi luxury hotels in the heart of the city of Mumbai were seized by a group of terrorists who captured hundreds of people in the hotels as hostages. Apart from these hotels there were bomb blasts in nine other places in Mumbai, all at a time.

Mumbai is the financial capital of India and thus had been the target of terrorist attacks for many years for now. Terrorists whose only aim is to destabilize the country and make it infamous internationally had chose to kill the unarmed civilians to reach their target. I never understand how they would justify this act of killing innocent people without any kind of provocation and the terrorists do all of this in the name of their god!

The unity exhibited by all the political parties of the country in condemning this act is worth mentioning. None of the parties blamed each other for the security breaches but realized they should remain united to fight terrorism. All the political parties from the state condemned these attacks ans took an oath to do anything that can contain terrorism.

 I hope that god blesses the terrorists with some common sense. If they are not pleased with the system in India and wanted to revolt, they are welcome to fight with the Indian Army, but not the civilians. India has lost three Police officers and one Army commando as of now. May souls of these heroes, who lost their lives to save the country, rest in peace.

Not even 24 hours passed after the state’s highest court has issued a stay on any kind of road shows by political parties or any other organization. However, Chief Minister’s family has considered themselves to be beyond any kind of law authorities and have blatantly violated the High Court’s orders.

YS Rajasekhar Reddy’s son YS Jaganmohan Reddy has organized a road show yesterday here in VemPalle, Kadapa. Jagan sat on his private vehicle as they passed through the streets of VemPalle which flooded by Congress supporters. This road show has caused traffic  jam in this area for about an hour and an RTC bus carrying passengers was halted for almost 30mins until the ‘convoy’ has passed away. It is to be noticed that, except that he is the son of the state’s chief minister, Mr. Jagan has no official status in the government or the congress party.

The local Police Commissioner was asked about this incident and he said that he would file a case against JaganMohan Reddy for violating the court orders. We know that this case will not go far, coz its the chief minister’s son on the other side.

This is a huge blow to all the political parties in the state. The High Court of Andhra Pradesh passed a ’stay’ on the Road Shows being organized by all the political parties and issued notices to all the parties of the state. It allowed the parties to file a counter in a week’s time if the parties feel that the ’stay’ is not fair.

With Chiranjeevi organizing Road Shows through out the state and receiving huge public response, all parites in the state folowed the same path and started organizing shows (all parties include Congress, PRP, TDP, TRS and Communists). The turn out for these road shows had been huge and everything was going well. However a few days back four people died in stampedein Chiranjeevi’s Road Show.

After this incident a person named Venkatesh filed a petition against the Road Shows being organized by political parties. He mentioned that the parties are trying to display by their strngth by organizing these road showsand the lack of proper control is causing the death of the people who attend these meetings. The High Court responded positively to the petition and ordered an immediate and inconditional stay on all the Road Shows. The Court ordered the Police Department not to allow any Road Shows.

The political parties are preparing to file counter petitions. This will be an important aspect in the current politics. Will the Road Shows be banned completely in India like some of the western countries?

The decision taken by the United States Government to inject US$300 billion into the CitiGroup has put the Andhra Government at ease. CitiGroup had been facing serious trouble in the past couple of months and was speculated to be at the verge of bankruptcy. However, now the situation appears to be under control.

The reason for the Government’s initial worry is that CitiBank has been handling the payments to the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam earned through online donations (TTD has started a web portal a few years ago which allows devotees in far off lands to send their offerings or donations online). This works exactly similar to the direct ‘hundi’ in the temple except that CitiBank keeps the money collected with itself as fixed deposits of TTD.

Though the online income is negligible compared to the direct income earned by TTD, the world’s richest god, the Government was worried as this was related to the sentiments of the devotees. So the Government along with TTD has decided to take measures to protect ‘God’s money’. However, now that the CitiGroup seems to be stable the Government may not take any drastic decisions.

Chief Minister Rajasekhar Reddy is following the footsteps of PRP president Chiranjeevi in his road shows. Unlike his usual public meetings he has tried to make them more dramatic and attractive, the Chiranjeevi had been organizing his meetings. Yesterday YSR visited Visakhapatnam district and talked about the various policies of their government and also took the opportunity to comment about Chiranjeevi’s roadshows.

He said the Chiru hasn’t completely come out of his film star image and is still behaving like a ‘hero’. He suggested Chiranjeevi to realize that he is now in politics and is not supposed to do what he does in the screen (in his recent meetings Chiru twirled his mustache and slapped his thigh). He said that he would not do what Chiranjeevi did and that he can only love people (saying so, YSR started throwing flying kisses at the people).

He then talked about the 108 ambulance services in the state and made the siren sound that these vehicles make (kooy kooy) and tried to amuse the people. It is being said that the impact of Obama (US President) is clearly evident in the speeches if YSR. Though he criticized Chiranjeevi for being dramatic, he did the same thing in this meeting to attract the people.

It is being reported that nearly 20 members of the Congress party who are currently serving as the Members of the Legislative Assembly are are trying for the MP ticket in the next elections. This is having serious impact on the members who had been contesting for MP and are planning to be re-elected.

The sudden demand for the MP tickets comes in the wake of Constituency refragmentation done last year. This refragmentation has completely split the constituencies of some of the member. These members know very well that they cannot win in the new formed constituencies and thus are trying for MP seats instead.

Another reason is the rise of new political powers in the state. The Praja Rajyam Party floated by Chiranjeevi is likely to have a heavy impact in most of the constituencies, especially in the Coastal Andhra.  So Congress men from these constituencies are either joining the PRP or trying for the MP seats.

This new trend will see heavy competition for the MP seats. So probably after the next elections, we will see most of our leaders in Delhi!

Yesterday, the first coalition in the state was confirmed for the next general elections to be held in five months from now. Telugu Desam Party and the Communists (CPM as well as CPI) have officially declared that these parties will work together in the next elections with the sole aim of bringing down the Congress party.

There was a lot of confusion as to how the coalitions will shape for the past few months. CPI had always been saying that they would like to work with Chiranjeevi’s PRP party while CPM wanted to go with TDP. At a time it was also rumored that the Comuunists parties will split and each of them will go with a separate party. Adding to the chaos was TRS which initially said that it is with TDP but later changed their stand a few days ago.

This will be the situation in a country like India which has hundreds of political parties. However, now that the Communists and TDp have officially declared the picture seems to be a bit clearer.

(TDP and Communists), (Congress and TRS), (PRP alone)