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Paying for Telangana flip-flops
The mishandling of the Telangana crisis continues to haunt the Congress. The party is finding it difficult to extract itself from this self-created mess, writes Pankaj Vohra.
The mishandling of the Telangana crisis continues to haunt the Congress. The party is finding it difficult to extract itself from this self-created mess. Emotions are so high that Congress MLAs and MPs are prepared to even defy their party president, a departure from the past. Attempts by senior leaders to cool tempers on either side have failed. The Centre with its flip-flops is fast losing credibility among supporters of both sides.
The Congress and the Centre have not even made a serious attempt to bring on board its allies in order to ascertain their opinion. Equally, no measures have been taken to gauge the Opposition’s viewpoint. In the process, the decision to carve out a separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh and subsequently put the plan on hold has demonstrated that only a handful of people oblivious of ground realities were handling the issue within the Congress. These people were advising both the Congress president and the Prime Minister.
It is virtually certain that those (mis)handling the issue convinced the party and government leadership that this would be in the interests of both the Congress and its government at the Centre and state. But this misdirected initiative has eroded the supremacy of the Congress president, who has brought the party this far in the last 11 years.
Both MLAs and MPs are not prepared to abide by the party and government wishes. Some of them have even faxed their resignations. Their stand is that they would rather be with their people (since they have to be re-elected) than with the party.
The obsession of some in the party’s core group with the creation of the separate state has led to a situation where even common sense political modalities have been ignored. There is no denying that the demand for Telangana is a historic one.
But if this has to be met, there are certain steps to be undertaken. The first would have been to separately and then collectively ascertain the views of the Congress party’s own MLAs and MPs from Andhra Pradesh. Today, it is being said that even ministers in the central government from the state were kept in the dark. The only explanation of this could be that those who were pushing for the case with the Congress president were not conversant with the situation on the ground.
Second, the historic reasons why Andhra Pradesh was created have also to be examined. The events soon after Partition and the manner in which the then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had to use force to prevent the Nizam of Hyderabad from getting his way is significant to this debate. The reorganisation of the Telugu-speaking people was subsequently done and the state in its present form was created. It may just be a point of view but the creation of the new state at this juncture when so many issues including those concerning internal security need greater attention is something that needs to be looked into by the Centre with a microscope.
The argument that smaller states are good for development does not necessarily hold good. Barring the experience of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, which were carved out of Punjab more out of political compulsions, there are not too many examples of small states thriving. Jharkhand continues to be in the news for either political instability or corruption. Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh have still a long way to go and the example of the Northeast also indicates that peace is still elusive.
The Centre must announce a commission for the re-organisation of states without any further delay and take into account the demand for a separate Telangana. Andhra Pradesh is not only one of the best states in the country but politically very vibrant. The pride of the Telugu people must be kept intact and solution should be found through wide consultations and not pre-conceived notions. Between us.
