Whose ‘Telugu Desam’ will it be anyway

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  Sunday, 23 February 2014 00:58
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Pain Protest and some pepper spray and the state of Telangana is born. After years of struggle, and several rounds of agitation, Telangana is has come into being as the 29th State of India. Next question who will it benefit from the split in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

With the passage of Telangana Bill the Congress party has saved itself from certain extinction in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress along with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti or TRS is likely to bag the lion’s share of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the region. Elsewhere in Seemandhra the picture is very different with the Congress expected to draw a blank, no seats coming its way from the residual Andhra Pradesh. If that be the case it will mean that the Congress will only get half the 33 seats it won in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Over in the BJP camp things are a no different while it doesn’t benefit from in Telengana the fact that the party supported the A.P. Reorganisation Bill has landed it in political quicksand as far as the Seemandhra region is conserned. Discontent is brewing within its district units in the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema areas. The feeling that the party has cheated the people of the Seemandhra region has been gaining ground over the last few days. The BJP workers in the region believe that the central leadership of the party allowed the Bill to be passed without first securing firm assurances on the interests of the Seemandhra region.

Realizing that both of them are not in a winning position at least in Seemandhra the BJP and the Congress have got into promise mode to try and woo back the people of the region. The BJP has promised to extend the special status to Seemandhra for 10 years instead of the present 5 given them under the agreement. And lest we forget there is the YSR Congress Party too in the fray here …and it is projected as the big winner in Seemandhra. So finally the BJP and the Congress will have the choice of wooing YS Jaganmohan Reddy in the state to firm up an alliance ..the question will Jagan be interested.

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