By Oracle
Telugu legend has a humorous story that explains the idiomatic expression of ‘counting the chicks before they are hatched’. A greedy and lazy person somehow grows corn in his small piece of a farm and makes a pot full of corn flour. He puts the pot near his feet to a corner of the tiny room he lives in and tells his wife that he plans to convert this potful of cornflour into a treasure trove.
Growing curious, she asks as to how he plans to do so. He tells her he gets double the money for the potful of corn flour and he will grow double the corn and makes four times the money later and so on. He says he is confident of growing the earnings in geometric proportion.
Once the earnings reach a sufficient scale, he will be buying a cow and start selling milk. That makes him buy more cows and sell more milk. After selling the milk and also domestic consumption, whatever is left can be donated to his extended family. The wife nods with consent and says she can also donate some milk to her parents. Angered by this proposition, he gets irritated and the argument continues between the couple. The enraged man, in a fit of anger, kicks into the air with his foot. But, incidentally, the foot kicks the pot containing corn flour and all that spills over and goes to waste.
This story exactly depicts the situation of the Congress leaders in Telangana. While TRS has KCR’s face to proudly claim as its Chief Ministerial candidate, the Grand Alliance doesn’t have one.
When Leader of the Opposition in the just-dissolved Assembly K Jana Reddy was asked if he were the Chief Ministerial candidate for the Grand Alliance on behalf of the Congress, he sheepishly smiled and gave the ‘standard’ Congress-mark reply that the party High Command would decide who should be the Chief Minister.
Well, he did not rule out that he was nursing an ambition to become the Chief Minister. In fact, he has said many a time and left ample hints to this effect, earlier too.
And, now let us see the long list of those who want to be the Chief Minister of Telangana from the Congress. V Hanumantha Rao, a former Rajya Sabha member, has always been there in the race. Former Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy, TPCC Chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy, former TPCC president Ponnala Lakshmaiah, the fire-brand Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, former Deputy Chief Minister Damodara Raja Narsimha (whose wife went to the BJP on Thursday morning and returned the same evening to the Congress fold), former minister J Gita Reddy, former Union Minister Sarve Satyanarayana, TPCC campaign committee chairman and working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, and the list goes on.
The list would not be complete without the mention of the name of A Revanth Reddy, who crossed over from the TDP into the Congress with an eye on the big seat. He went a step ahead and declared that Mohd Ali Shabbir, a senior Congress leader from erstwhile Nizamabad district, would be the Deputy Chief Minister, as if Revanth Reddy would “exercise his prerogative” to appoint Shabbir as his deputy. The way the Congress leaders are talking is as if the grand alliance is already in the saddle. This may remain a dream forever.