By: J R Janumpalli
The forthcoming Telangana state has created some political convolutions in the region, ahead of general elections. All the political parties as their wont and as the need of their trade are playing power politics in the name of Telangana State. The people of Telangana, in the euphoria of new state, are becoming complacent. They are in a vulnerable situation for diversion from the focus of Telangana cause to prosaic politics. It is a dodgy situation. Telangana State granted by UPA is full of fetters. To get an unencumbered state like other 28 states in the country there is a long way to go. To overcome those restrictions imposed on Telangana State perhaps they need an ardent struggle as the struggle for the state itself.
The parties like Congress and BJP and seemandhra dominated local parties, if they have a say in Telangana government they will gloss over those restrictions and use them for their political advantage. Therefore at least till they steer clear of these restrictions, Telangana people should focus unswervingly on Telangana political cause. They cannot succumb to half-truths of the power politics of those political parties. The Congress and BJP, who as national parties, are not particularly enamored of Telangana regional needs. These parties if they are in power in Telangana, will sponsor seemandhra influence on Telangana government directly or by proxy. Parties likeTDP and YSRCP are confirmed adversaries to Telangana state. Their thriving in Telangana will be similar to the dangers of a Trojan horse.
Telangana people have experienced the malevolent tactics of these parties in 2004, 2009 general elections and during the long drawn tragic struggle since 9th, December 2009. They have to simply draw the inferences from those experiences and act wisely. Any ingenuous political preferences based on the motivated political propaganda of them this time around, will have a telling effect on the nascent state of Telangana in its efforts to come out of the shackles fastened to it. All of them are claiming to have facilitated the award of Telangana state. But, if we examine the happenings in the last session of Parliament and the causes and effects of those happenings and the final outcome of T-Bill we will know who has done what.
People of Telangana are to be very critical and circumspect in choosing the political parties in these general elections. For Telangana, it is not a routine run of the mill general elections. The Party(s) which comes to power now will have to lay the foundation for the new state of Telangana. They have to get all the sanctions imposed on it by the central government in T-Bill removed. They have to keep the marauding andhra dominated political parties, who are the antithesis of telangana, out of Telangana. They have to estimate the backlog of backwardness forced on Telangana in the united state and usher in plans to rebuild Telangana with a careful identification, prioritization and execution of Projects that will meet the hopes of telangana people in the new state. This cannot be done by the parties which have the remote control in Delhi or the administration which acts as proxy for seemandhra interests. We all know by this time the Central government works for those who have more political clout with numbers or otherwise, or with a strong regional presence, commitment to the region and the ability to leverage their political strength.
Therefore, it is a litmus test for the commitment of Telangana people to the state of Telangana and their judgment. They cannot afford to fall prey to the litany of regular political commotion of caste, creed, class, persona etc. Those issues are very much there. They can be addressed at appropriate time in an appropriate manner. But it is not the time to lend more credence to those things, which can dilute the process of consolidation of our new state of Telangana. We all should know that, though we are given a state of Telangana, it is not yet out of the woods. Thus, Telangana cause cannot be a casualty of power politics. It is time for Telangana people to define their Telangana political ethos in clear terms and use it for taking the new state forward evading the diversions of banal politics.